


Odds & Ends (FFxivWrite 2020)

by thesparklingone



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: FFxivWrite 2020, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:48:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 20,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26240650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesparklingone/pseuds/thesparklingone
Summary: Here lie all of my writings for FFxivWrite 2020. Characters and timeframes and tenses vary.Table of contents in the notes for chapter 1. Spoilers for 5.3 are noted there where they apply.All chapters rated T except for 14, which is E.Please skip as necessary.Since I've gone ahead and added the Aymeric/Estinien tag to this, I'll mark where their coupledom features: chapter 14 (NSFW), chapter 19, chapter 22, and chapter 24, though 24 is more about found family in general than them as a couple.
Relationships: Aymeric de Borel/Estinien Wyrmblood
Comments: 46
Kudos: 32
Collections: #FFxivWrite2020 Final Fantasy 30 Day Writing Challenge





	1. Crux

**Author's Note:**

> Rough table of contents, featured characters in parentheses:
> 
> 1\. Crux (Thancred, Urianger)  
> 2\. Sway (WoL, Carvallain)  
> 3\. Muster (Aymeric)  
> 4\. Clinch (WoL, Alphinaud, Alisaie) [Minor 5.3 spoilers]  
> 5\. Matter of Fact (Ahelissa, Ranulf)  
> 6\. Repetition (Estinien, Alberic) [Random word chosen for free day]  
> 7\. Nonagenarian (WoL)  
> 8\. Clamor (Jessie, Nero, Cid, Biggs, Wedge)  
> 9\. Lush (WoL) [Minor 5.3 spoilers]  
> 10\. Avail (WoL)  
> 11\. Ultracrepidarian (Y'shtola, Thancred, Moenbryda)  
> 12\. Tooth and Nail (Estinien)  
> 13\. Decay (Voeburt--no named characters) [Random word chosen for free day]  
> 14\. Part (Aymeric/Estinien) [ **NSFW** ]  
> 15\. Ache (WoL)  
> 16\. Lucubration (Urianger, Moenbryda)  
> 17\. Fade (WoL)  
> 18\. Panglossian (Aymeric, Zephirin)  
> 19\. Where the Heart Is (Aymeric/Estinien)  
> 20\. Orchestra (WoL, Alphinaud) [Random word chosen for free day]  
> 21\. Foibles (WoL, Tataru)  
> 22\. Argy-bargy (Aymeric/Estinien)  
> 23\. Shuffle (Thancred)  
> 24\. Beam (Aymeric, Estinien, Alphinaud, WoL)  
> 25\. Wish (WoL) [Major 5.3 spoilers]  
> 26\. When Pigs Fly (Alphinaud, Alisaie)  
> 27\. Log (Cid) [Major 5.3 spoilers] [Random word chosen for free day]  
> 28\. Irenic (Handeloup)  
> 29\. Paternal (WoL, Midgardsormr)  
> 30\. Splinter (WoL, G'raha Tia)

"Pray, Thancred, dost thou seest thine knight undefended--"

"Aye, Urianger, I _do,_ in fact see that my knight is undefended, and if you wanted to play chess against yourself you could have bloody well left me out of it!"

The oft-enigmatic elezen (or was it elven, here on the First?) aetherologist fell silent, allowing Thancred to contemplate his next move in peace. It wasn't going very well for him, not that that came as much of a surprise. Urianger was many things, patient and plotting well among them, though his tendency to connive had a strange innocence about it, not unlike Alphinaud's own inclination toward scheming and strategizing. It was a bizarre combination of traits and contributed, directly, to his skill at this particular type of game. A skill that Thancred was not without, but did not share to remotely the same degree. Knowing all this, as he had known Urianger for more years now than he cared to consider, it was really his own fault that he was losing so poorly, for had he a lick of sense about him, he'd never have agreed to the match in the first place.

He sighed and moved a pawn into a space that would protect it from Urianger's assault on his knight, knowing that doing so practically guaranteed his loss of the game. It wasn't that he'd left anything critical open, no, his king and queen were still untouchable, and would be for several more turns. But the fact that he was already on the defensive--oh yes. Thancred knew the end was coming. At best, he'd work to prolong it as long as possible, just to be irritating. Well, if it were possible to irritate Urianger in such a manner. Bloody patient Sharlayan.

Urianger considered the board for long moments, his golden eyes sweeping slowly across the board as he took everything in. This is where Thancred knew he faltered by comparison. He just simply lacked the patience, the self-restraint necessary to think through every move as systematically and thoughtfully as Urianger did. To but it bluntly, Thancred got _bored_.

Bored of board games. Bored games. Ha.

In his daydreaming, he almost missed Urianger's move; an expectedly conservative shifting of a bishop. Ugh, this was also the problem. He got bored, then he started daydreaming, then he missed everything.

He did his best to consider his options, though he knew he would do so nowhere near as thoroughly as Urianger. Hmm. There seemed to be a bit of an opening for him on one side of the board. Thinking to take it, he slid his rook forward.

"Ah, if I might suggest thine reconsideration, Thancred--"

"Urianger!" Thancred smacked his forehead in exasperation. "Just let me lose in peace!"

"But wherefore of mine own scholarly nature, my friend, were I to simply sit and watch thee fail when I knew I could aid in thine endeavors?"

Thancred crossed his arms and eyed him. "So is that the crux of it, then? You'd feel a failure of a Sharlayan, letting me make my own mistakes?"

Urianger paused, looking thoughtful. "Well, when thou dost word it as such..."

Thancred shook his head, but could not suppress a smile. "This is why you always got stuck doing everyone's homework for them, you know."

"Nay, Thancred. Thine homework didst I complete for cash." He considered the board again, then made his move. "Check."


	2. Sway

The Warrior of Light leaned against the clipper's railings and stared out toward the horizon where met the edges of sea and sky. Today the weather was fine--or would have been considered so had they been ashore--sunny, warm, and clear with air as still as a hunter hiding by a salt lick. But for those at sea, it meant the sails hung limp on their spars, the ship adrift and going nowhere.

Waiting was something she was rarely wont to do given the choice. Of course here, there was none. Beneath her brown skin it felt as though her very blood itched, restless and troubled, craving forward movement and only finding the gentle, rocking sway of a boat at the mercy of the waves. Even then, the swells were small, more akin to the ripples of a lake than an ocean. Her mind drifted back to the slaughter of Rhalgr's Reach, their failed first stand alongside the Ala Mhigan Resistance. Without the distraction of forward momentum, beneath the relentless bright beat of the sunlight, she found she could to little but brood. Those she encountered tended to emphasize and remember her successes, but it was her failures that shone brightest in her own memory.

"'Tis the worst part, truly," came a voice to her left. "The waiting." She glanced over to find Captain Carvaillain watching her, arms crossed across his chest. "You don't strike me as one for idleness, Warrior of Warriors."

She shook her head. "I'm not. Never have been." She turned her gaze back toward that endless stretch of blue. "But I can tolerate what I must. The doldrums won't last forever."

"They won't," the captain agreed. "And depending upon our luck, the change might even be worse."

That prompted the twitch of her lip into a half-smile. "Knowing the luck that dogs my heels, that may very well become the case."

Carvallain laughed. "If it is so, well, I have seen nigh on anything you can imagine at sea. We take things as they come."

"As do I," she replied.

"Mind if I join you in your restless brooding?" he asked.

"Not at all," she replied, "Assuming the captain of this vessel doesn't have better places to be."

He laughed and slid into the space next to her, forearms braced lightly against the rail, fingers loosely interlaced. "My crew knows their work. As you've noticed, there isn't much to do until the wind changes."

"In that case, then." Her smile widened and softened. "Do stay."

Shoulder to shoulder together they stood, strange comrades watching the slow slide of the swells around them. Gradually, their vessel drifted east toward Kugane, these weeks but a pause between breaths for the woman many called the Hero of Eorzea. Soon enough she would set foot upon the lands of the Far East, and her battles--failures and successes alike--would begin anew.


	3. Muster

"Hmm," the knight mused, thumb stroking his chin. He circled slowly around the would-be squire, who imagined himself a chocobo at auction, being sized up for potential purchase. It was not an inapt comparison, and he could only hope that he--adopted son of a waning noble house, wiry-thin and yet a few years shy of the famed elezen growth spurt--would not be found wanting.

"Is it true what they say?" the knight asked at last. "That you are indeed the archibishop's bastard?"

Aymeric de Borel did not flinch at this line of inquiry, indeed, such questions had been lobbed at him his entire life. Now, at sixteen summers, he essentially expected them, and was more surprised when he did _not_ face the curiosity--sometimes idle, sometimes malicious--of his compatriots. That meant not, however, that he enjoyed it.

"I know not, Ser Thierrault," he replied, the response practiced on his tongue. "'Tis true I am a bastard son, but whose remains unknown, even to mine own self. The rumors are persistent, but I am afraid they provide no answer."

Ser Thierrault made another thoughtful sound and continued his examination. A Temple Knight of some renown in his late thirties, winning a place as his squire would surely set Aymeric squarely on the path he most desired to follow, provide him the chance to become a protector of his homeland, and mayhap-- _mayhap_ \--if he too became renowned enough through deeds... mayhap the questions would cease.

"Tell me, young Lord de Borel," Ser Thierrault began, "what drives you to seek a place amongst the Temple Knights?"

"I wish to serve Ishgard," Aymeric said.

"'Tis all?" the knight countered. "No dreams of dragonslaying glory? Of fame or fortune or women?" A somewhat-lewd grin split Ser Thierrault's scarred and angled features. "Women do so _love_ a knight."

Aymeric worked hard to prevent a blush, and was fortunately successful. "'Twould be dishonest to claim I do not dream of achieving some measure of success, ser," he answered. "'Tis true that, if I am to be a knight, I should like to be good at it."

The older man laughed, and it at least sounded mostly genuine. "An answer whose wisdom belies the age of its speaker," he said. "So be it then, Aymeric de Borel, I would very much like to see what potential you may have."

In the training ring, the knight handed Aymeric a wooden practice sword, taking another for himself. He held it loosely, easily, with the clear confidence and skill of one who had done so for so long that the weapon had become as near an extension of his arm as his own hand. Aymeric was not entirely without ability. He knew the basic sword forms, most young Ishgardians of a certain class and upbringing did, and he had spent much time practicing with some of the other boys his age. Those who would deign to do so; his fellow bastard sons. He was well smart enough to know, however, that such comparatively meager endeavors gained him little against a knight whose service to the Holy See spanned the better part of two decades.

"Defend yourself," Ser Thierrault said, and then he was on him, surging forward with violent grace, and instinct took over, Aymeric stepped to the side and swung his sword for a parry and surprised himself to hear the distinctive, rough clack of wood against wood as he successfully deflected the blow.

The knight turned to face him. "Again."

And again they danced.

It did not take long for Aymeric to understand how profoundly Ser Thierrault was restraining himself, how much he held back, reserved, controlled. Perhaps it should have stirred his pride, perhaps he should have felt insulted, but the man was half again as tall as he, burly and corded with hard muscle as lanky, teenaged Aymeric surely was not. He understood that this was a test, an exploratory experiment, and he chose to hold himself in reserve as much as he could, to respond to the attacks conservatively and without unnecessary flair. Ser Thierrault did not strike him as the type who would be moved by fancy footwork or showmanship. Good knights were pragmatic people, and so was Aymeric.

"Enough!" Ser Thierrault called, after what felt like an eternity. Aymeric's arm ached, his sword hand sore with the cumulative rattling of the blows. Sweat dripped down his brow and cheeks, stinging his eyes, and his chest burned with every breath, but he waited still in ready stance, for his yet-short life's experience had taught him that the moment you relaxed your guard was the moment you were most vulnerable to attack.

The knight chuckled at his wary posture. "Be at ease, Aymeric," he said. He held out his hand to collect the wooden sword, and the young man handed it over.

"Impressive," Ser Thierrault commented, thoughtful yet again. "Impressive indeed." Again he inspected the young man, the decision clearly taking shape in his mind.

Suddenly he stood. "Aye, indeed. I daresay you do pass muster. I should very much like to accept you as my squire, Aymeric de Borel."

Aymeric's heart leaped into his throat, racing even harder than it had been from the exertion. "Thank you, ser," he managed, and he was pleased with the control he managed in his tone until he added, "it shall be my honor to serve as your squire," and his adolescent voice betrayed him, cracking most spectacularly along a range of depth that would have impressed a Gridanian bard.

Thierrault laughed heartily, some of his intimidating facade falling away. "I should certainly hope so, young man," he said. "Now, run along and tell your parents, and I shall expect you and the Viscount de Borel at the Congregation tomorrow morning sharp at the eight o'clock bell to sign all the necessarily documents."

"Aye, ser," Aymeric replied, nodding once. "We shall be there."

The old knight smiled. "Welcome to the Temple Knights, Aymeric de Borel."


	4. Clinch

Her shoulder hit the dirt and she rolled, momentum propelling her back onto her feet, aether gathering at her fingertips to aim at her opponent even as she unfurled once again into standing. She spun, dodged, and wove, sending waves of magic slamming into the enemy she faced, calling poison into its veins--or whatever passed for veins among primals, anyway. From across their battlefield, the little ruby carbuncle shot jets of conjured flame at the summoned minor god, punctuating the woman's other blows. She could feel her aether gathering, coalescing into form, taking the shape that would allow for her greatest summoner's trick--ah, yes, _now_.

Power surged through her, blinding-blue and levin-bright. She threw her hand to the sky and tossed her head back and _called_.

Bahamut answered.

A shadow of his true self, to be certain, and glad of it was she, even now as the bloodsong of battle rang through her body, narrowing her focus, scouring her mind of all other thoughts or concerns. _May the true primal Bahamut never again darken the skies of this star_ , that prayer, at least, remained earnest. The shining red ruby carbuncle vanished, power temporarily transposed, fueling instead Bahamut's burning blue. Slender wings, long as a blade, unfurled overhead with a snap as claws and snout and scales took shape. In the next breath, the summoned shade engulfed the enemy primal in a pillar of searing white light, the summoner herself following up with yet another aetheric barrage. It was enough to clinch her victory, and in the next breath the primal fell, bursting into a shower of aetherial shards that further split and dissolved, returned, as was necessary, to the general currents of the land and the lifestream.

The Warrior of Light let the power fade from her hands, extended one to catch the arcane book that hovered before her, falling shut nearly of its own accord, now that her work was done. Behind her, the brilliant shade of Bahamut flapped lazily, floating midair, nothing left for it to attack. A moment later, it too, dissolved back into the aether from whence it came and the ruby carbuncle reappeared, ears pricked at the ready.

"Sparkling! Sparkling, are you quite well?" Alphinaud Leveilleur's concerned voice turned her head, he and his sister of course the first to race to her side now that the danger for those who lacked the Echo had passed. She looked down into those two pairs of concerned eyes, the impossibly gifted young elezen twins she had come to love as fiercely as if they were her own siblings, and for them, she could conjure a smile.

"Aye," she answered. "I have faced Lord Ifrit many times, now. He has few tricks yet unknown to me."

"I told you she would be fine, brother," Alisaie said, crossing her arms. "How many of these primals has she faced and defeated?"

"A relief indeed," Alphinaud continued, ignoring his sister's comment. "Still, if I may...?"

Sparkling let him guide her away from the site of her battle, to sit her down in the shade of a tree and call on his own brand of magic, that which healed and soothed. Alisaie leaned against the trunk, eyes rolling at her brother's fussiness, but there was no mistaking either the warmth or relief in her expression.

Sparkling eased her head back against the tree's rough bark and let her own eyes fall shut. The buzz and drone of Thanalan filled her ears, the sent of dry earth and scrub her nose. In this victory there was no grace. The primals needed to be destroyed, she knew, lest the energy that fueled their forms drain the very land of its vitality, rendering rivers dry and soil sterile. Yet, in defeating them, she knew she further sowed the seeds of despair that drove their followers to summon them, desperate for a hero to deliver them from their suffering. To this self-sabotaging cycle, she could see no way out, unless many, many things changed at once. Not for the first time, she wondered if perhaps she directed her efforts along the wrong vector.

Work done, Alphinaud settled back to sit cross-legged at his sister's feet. The three of them remained like that for a while, still and quiet in the aftermath of a hollow success.

 _If anyone can change things, it will be them_ , Sparkling thought, not for the first time. These remarkable young people, perhaps gifted, perhaps merely privileged, with the hearts and souls of lions. The thoughtful, determined brother and the fierce, compassionate sister. Twin lights in the dark, burning bright. She would do everything in her power to keep them safe, to be their bulwark in this world. For though the Warrior of Light was used to being the one to whom the people looked for deliverance, she knew, now more than ever, her true calling in this world: to be a shepherd to the stars.


	5. Matter of Fact

"What do we got here, now?" Ahelissa sidled up behind Ranulf, looking over his shoulder.

"All the latest shipments seem to have come in at once," Ranulf answered, smiling. "Looks like we've got quite the sorting business ahead of us."

"There are worse problems to have," came the reply, and Ranulf laughed a bit, nodding.

"Agreed. Well, my friend, care to get to it?"

Ahelissa fetched her crowbar and set to prying the lids off the crates of goods, sent to Rhalgr's Reach from all corners of Eorzea. There were green bottles of La Noscean olive oil, delicately wrapped in paper and packed with straw, gleaming hammered copper ingots from Thanalan, stacks of beautifully cured Gridanian leather, and a veritable pile of lowland Coerthan fleece, soft and fine and perfectly ready to be spun into yarn. There was dried fruit and cured meats, cloth and lumber, tallow and potions and dyes and soap.

Unexpectedly, tears pricked the corners of Ahelissa's eyes. "I still can hardly believe it," she said softly, scrubbing the back of her hand across her face. "All those years, Ranulf. All those years when getting a bushel of Gridanian cotton would have meant risking your neck at the border. And now..." she gestured toward the bounty before them, just waiting to be sorted and priced and distributed and sold. "D'you remember when all we had was whatever shite leftovers the Empire would bother to toss us? Bent needles, used cooking oil." She shook her head, brows creasing in anger. "Twenty years under their bloody boot heels."

"Matter o' fact, I do remember, Ahelissa," Ranulf replied, resting a hand on her arm. He too closed his eyes, the familiar wave of fury rolling through him at the bitter memories of Garlean cruelty. "I daresay we all do."

"I know," she replied, sighing. "Forgive me."

Ranulf squeezed her arm. "Nothing to forgive, my friend." He looked over all the lovely things that had come to them from their neighbors, their allies. They were mere objects, true, but what they represented to him, to Ahelissa, to the people of Ala Mhigo, was impossible to understate. With these materials, with their hands, with their alliance, would their nation be rebuilt.

"Well," Ahelissa said, squaring her shoulders, "Let's get to it, then.


	6. Repetition (Free Day)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I used a random word generator to pick today's prompt, because it's a free day.

"Again."

He repeated the series of motions, ending in a leap, roll, and jab.

Alberic nodded. "Good. Again."

Estinien furrowed his brow and did as he was told. Thrust, dodge, block, swing, leap, roll, jab.

"Watch your swing, there, Estinien," Alberic said. "You were wide open on the left. Now, do it again."

So he did.

Over and over and over, every day, for hours he trained, everything from calisthenics to stretching, swordwork, spearwork, and daggers. His childhood had taught him how to read the weather, how to track and trail beasts, how to trap and hunt and skin, how to find water, how to build a fire, and which plants could be eaten or used for medicine, but he needed more than that, now. He needed to know how to fight, how to defend and protect and _kill_.

Not like killing for food. Killing because, if you did not, your enemies would kill you first. Killing because theirs was a nation at war, and only now did he finally, truly understand. Killing because his family had been killed, and they were gone, and he was all that remained. Vengeance was all that remained.

The dragons were nigh-immortal foes. They lived for eons, they grew to be enormous, they could fly upon the currents of the air and breathe fire from their lungs as surely as their people, earthbound, small, comparatively weak and short-lived--even when their lives were not cut short by violence--could not.

And still, despite the odds, they persisted. Estinien persisted.

He grasped the long, pointed practice lance. He thrust, he dodged, he blocked. He swung, he leaped, he rolled, he jabbed. Over and over and over again. Until the day he could join the Temple Knights. Until the day he could become a Knight Dragoon. Until the day he could become _Azure_ Dragoon, for no less than that was his goal. Until he could kill dragons, each day, every day, as each night, every night, the dragons killed his mother, his father, and his brother in his nightmares, over and over and over.

Each and every morning he awoke, haunted by the traces of these memories. And so he reminded himself, over and over, of what he was here to accomplish.

Through repetition is a habit made: of body, of mind, of spirit.

So Estinien practiced his lancework, recited his ambitions, and fanned the flames of his hatred.

Over, and over, and over.


	7. Nonagenarian

The old woman sat on the front porch of her home, rocking gently back and forth in her chair, afternoon sun warming her papery skin. 'Twas the end of another fine and lazy day here on the northern slopes of Abalathia's Spine, and after everything she had seen and done in the long years of her life, fine and lazy days were exactly what she wanted. She leaned her head against the chair back, folding her gnarled hands against her heavy skirts and sighing contentedly in the blessed peace.

Until a tug on her sleeve disturbed her.

She cracked one eye open to find a usual suspect standing at her arm, wide-eyed, one finger shoved in her mouth.

"Auntie, will you tell me a story?"

"Hmm. Will I tell you a story." The auntie in question pretended to consider. "That depends upon which story you wish to hear, my dear."

"I wanna hear about Yugiri, the shinobi of Doma!" the little girl said.

"No!" interrupted a second voice. The little girl's sister, a year older, was running up the steps to the porch. "Tell us about Ishgard and the dragons, Auntie!"

"Hmm," the old woman said again, pushing her chair back with her toes. "I told you both those stories yesterday. Isn't there anything different that you want?"

At their auntie's prompting, both girls practically fell over each other trying to out-suggest each other. For two children both under six years old, the nonagenarian had to admit that their capacity for remembering her tales was quite spectacular. Even she tended to get some of the details confused these days, everything blurring together at the edges like the last fading colors of sunset.

"Tell us about the au ra of the Azim Steppe, then!"

"Tell us about Ala Mhigo and the Empire!"

"Tell us about the Crystal Tower!"

"The great Auspices of the Ruby Sea!"

"The pirates of Limsa Lominsa!"

"Oh dear," the old woman said. These young ones, they were so delightful but also so _exhausting_. She closed her eyes again and smiled, rocking slowly. "No, I don't think I shall tell any of those stories." The girls made disappointed noises until she raised one crooked finger and silenced them. "Not to fear, my dears, I will tell you _a_ story. Just none of those. But first..." she nodded toward the younger girl. "Bright Crocus, go fetch me my blanket, these old bones need some help to keep warm. And you, Lively Moon, bring me a tall glass of water, so my throat doesn't dry in the talking."

Both girls nodded solemnly before running off to do as they were bid. When they returned, the old woman spread the blanket across her lap and clasped the water lightly before her in both her hands, stilling her rocking so it wouldn't spill. Duty discharged, Bright and Lively crossed their legs and sat at the auntie's feet, wide eyes gazing up at her.

" _Now_ will you tell us your story?" Lively asked.

"Aye," she replied, smiling. "Though I will warn you, it's not my story." At the puzzled looks the girls gave her, she laughed. "Oh, it's mine to tell, though, fear not, for I was entrusted with it long ago, by someone very dear to me." She lifted her hand to touch her heart, briefly. "Someone who passed long ago, but who ever has been with me since."

Both girls nodded solemnly.

"Now you two well know that on this world, there can occasionally be found great heroes gifted with the Blessing of Hydaelyn, who are charged with defending the realm, of course--"

"Like you!" Bright interrupted.

The old woman laughed lightly. "Aye, like me, once upon a time. But there are other worlds too, you know, and they too have their great heroes. And this is the story of one of them." She paused, memories both sad and sweet softening the many lines of her face.

"This is the story of Ardbert," said the Warrior of Light.


	8. Clamor

Jessie allowed herself a satisfied smile as she signed off on the last of the invoices--underlining her name with a flourish--and stacked it neatly on top of the others. That was it, she was done for the day, Garlond Ironworks' books were balanced for the quarter, and everything was in perfect, well-functioning order. Leaning back in her chair, fingers laced behind her head, she closed her eyes and smiled, enjoying the peace she had earned.

Until a loud shout and the unmistakable sound of a pile of metal and glass crashing to the ground sent her rocketing out of her chair and to her feet, already stalking furiously toward the workshop. She didn't even need to think about it--she knew _exactly_ who the culprits were, and could probably guess exactly what had happened in under three tries, as well.

She kicked open the workshop's door, and, sure enough, there they were: Cid Garlond and Nero Scaeva, in each other's faces, pointing fingers, yelling incomprehensibly, and standing next to a pile of debris on the floor. Biggs and Wedge lounged inconspicuously in the corner--well, Biggs doing his best to be as inconspicuous as it was possible for a full-grown roegadyn man to be--and Jessie sidled up to them, crossing her arms.

"What is it this time?" she asked.

Biggs shrugged. "Didn't see, to be honest. Was working on something else. Think Nero snuck up behind Cid and surprised him."

Jessie rolled her eyes as Wedge nodded. "Yep. The Chief was working on the new Boilmaster when Nero walked up behind him, and..." Wedge trailed off. "Well, I didn't see exactly what happened, but he yelled real loud and flailed around and knocked over the prototype, and now..." He gestured toward the bickering pair.

"So I see." Jessie huffed and rolled her shoulders. "Well, someone's gotta be the adult here."

She strode over to where the two men--though one could be forgive for assuming them simply overgrown boys--were busy jabbing each other in the chest and slinging accusations, each insult drawing further back from their histories together such that Jessie was quite certain that, given a few more minutes, they'd be snarling about who'd snored louder in their high school boarding dormitory.

"Scaeva! Garlond!" she barked. "What on earth are you on about this time? I can hear you the whole way in the office."

"He--!" Cid's eyes bulged with anger, but he snapped his mouth shut. "Ugh, never mind. Just let me get back to work." He bent over and started picking up the remains of his Boilmaster prototype, more aggressively than was strictly necessary.

Nero smiled one of his signature languorous, smug smiles, and shrugged. "Garlond here simply has no sense of humor whatsoever."

Cid muttered something unintelligible from where he was rummaging around on the floor.

"What was that, Cid?" Jessie asked.

There was a pause, then the head researcher of Garlond Ironworks stood abruptly, something clutched in his gloved hand, and said, loudly, "All right, then, Nero, let's see how _you_ like an ice crystal shoved down the back of your shirt!"

Nero let out a yelp and turned to run, Cid hot on his heels, their clamor echoing throughout the workshop. Jessie leaned back her head and groaned. Next quarter, she was going to give herself a raise.


	9. Lush

When things become too much to bear, there are places--and, sometimes, people--the Warrior of Light seeks out. The grave of Haurechefant Greystone, to brush snow off the granite monument and sit in stillness and remembered joy. The sweltering plains of eastern Thanalan, heavy with aether and the scent of dust. Ga Bu in Limsa Lominsa, to remind herself of what true sacrifice looks like and what she fights to prevent. But when the need for real solitude calls, there is but one space in all Eorzea that draws her, and that is the lush rainforest of Raincatcher Gully.

Nowhere else in Aldenard soothes her spirit like those giant, quiet trees, laden with fruit and vines, or the sound and smell of running water deep in the forest. Dense underbrush hides all from sight and muffles all sound, and cached away among heavy understory, some manner of peace can find her.

She feels churlish to complain, but it is also true that the mantle of Warrior of Light is a heavy one to bear. Her Blessing is great, and she is usually grateful for it, for the gift that is the ability to stand up in the face of war and death, to fight on behalf of those who cannot, or for those who, like Haurchefant and Ga Bu, tried and paid with blood, either their own or others'. So she does her best not to burden her comrades with her dark thoughts. She knows they would listen, were she to ask, and perhaps someday she will sit down over a quiet drink with Thancred or Krile or Lyse and speak of some of her heart's deepest corners. Someday, but not yet. It's funny but she almost wishes she could summon Hythlodaeus to her side, just for this. She can't really access the memories of the oldest shape of her soul, but instinct tells her the Ancient would be a ready listener, and good dispenser of advice. If she ever finds his shard here on the Source, she hopes she is able to recognize it, and, more selfishly, she hopes it recognizes her.

She closes her eyes and exhales slowly through her nose, willing her senses to focus on the immediate surrounds. On the smooth, cool bark of the fig tree against her back, and the consistent sound of water droplets dripping from leaf to leaf. On the gentle scent of rich loam and greenery and the occasionally faint waft of sweet lily on the breeze. Of the taste of clean, humid air in her throat as she breathes. Here is a tiny, quiet paradise amidst the endless din of the drums of war and suffering. Like a fine wine or meal, she can savor it, but only temporarily. Soon enough she will get to her feet and brush off her coat, set to walking back into the complex world.

For now, though, is calm and soothing stillness. For now she need not be a body in constant motion. Rest and recuperate, and return to the fight, and perhaps one day her work will be done.


	10. Avail

Sometimes, she simply needed to run. Occasionally the urge would be satisfied from atop her chocobo, her loyal bird obligingly stretching its neck and lengthening its strides near to flying, hurtling across the plains of Thanalan or the snows of Coerthas, stinging winds in her face. But other times, she needed to be on her own feet, pushing her own body to its limits, feeling the burn in her legs and the rasp in her throat. Sometimes the stillness itched beneath her skin like a column of ants, and her mind would buzz and whir like one of Cid's magitek contraptions until exhaustion, by necessity, shut it down.

When she got like this, Alphinaud would fret. So would Alisaie, though her way of expressing it was decidedly less tender than her brother's. Sparkling could hear the concern beneath the sharp words, nonetheless. Tataru and Krile, too, would furrow their brows, turn down the corners of their mouths, but by now they knew better than to say anything. Y'shtola and Thancred kept their thoughts to themselves, whatever they were, as did Urianger, but the tall, quiet elezen always had a fresh pot of tea ready for her, whenever she tired and returned to the Rising Stones.

Out along the shores of Silvertear Lake, the ruins of the Agrius and Midgardsormr loomed over everything, a monument for death. It was fitting, as far as she was concerned, because it was always the dead that drove her to run so, the ghosts of friends and loved ones and simple folk; the ones she had failed to protect. Those she had lost. Body counts trailed in her wake wherever she went, it seemed, but the memories of some stood starker than others. Moenbryda. Haurchefant. Ysayle. Papalymo. All of them had given their lives to some extent to protect her, to protect this land, to protect and ensure its future. And she tried to honor that, to remind herself that all of them had made conscious choices, all had lived lives that they knew might have demanded their relinquishing of that life at any time. But it was all to no avail. That knowledge held neither comfort nor solace, only despair.

Despair was a luxury she could not afford. So she ran, to feel her heart pound in her chest, the air in her lungs, the wind through her wiry hair. To remind herself that those who died had done so for the sake of life. For her life. For the lives of others. For the sake of that sacrifice, for the sake of those memories, she would never, ever stop. She would run, and she would fight, and she would honor the past and build the future. And one day, hopefully long from now, she would see them all again.


	11. Ultracrepidarian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one hell of a word prompt, I must say.

Y'shtola Rhul was not having the greatest evening. None of them were, really, if the looks on Thancred and Moenbryda's faces were anything to go by. It was really their own fault, though--no, it was Thancred's fault, though it was hers and Moenbryda's for going along with him--because it was he who had suggested they go out into the pub to continue their discussion on white auracite. "Change of scenery will do us good," he'd said. "Familiarize the locals with our faces."

Well, the locals of Revenant's Toll were certainly more familiar in habit than those of Vesper Bay had been, that they knew for certain, now. Because naught but fifteen minutes had passed before some blasted self-important adventurer had overheard their conversation and invited himself to partake of it.

"Oh, if it's _soul trappin'_ yer on about, well, look no further!" he declared, plopping himself down into an unused seat between herself and Moenbryda. "Why, I do it meself all the bloody time!"

"Really," Thancred said, in the signature deadpan only Y'shtola herself could hope to match. "Is that so."

"Oh, aye!" the enthusiastic hyur man said, nodding vigorously. "Why, I trapped a soul naught but three days hence!"

"And what, pray tell, did you use for the trapping?" Y'shtola asked, managing to sound marginally more interested than her fellow Scion. The man was clearly full of shite, but damn if she wasn't going to play with her prey for a hot minute before she mercilessly murdered it. She _was_ miqo'te, after all.

"Why, magitek, o' course! Can't do proper soul trappin' without magitek, now can ye?" the ultracrepidarian man answered, visibly puffing his chest like a lekking ptarmigan. "Got me a soul box I stole right out from under the noses of them imperials at Castrum Centri."

Y'shtola exchanged looks with Thancred and Moenbryda. This man, he had to be drunk. And if not, he was very, very stupid.

"Imperial Magitek soul box," Moenbryda said. "Wow. Sounds pretty incredible."

"Oh, 'tis, 'tis!" he insisted.

"Might we be able to see this fabulous soul box, then?" Y'shtola asked. Gritting inwardly, she managed to force herself to bat her eyelids once for extra effect. Thancred coughed into his beer, very obviously covering a laugh.

"Ohhhh," the man said, drawing patterns on the table with his finger in a display of obviously feigned thoughtfulness. "Well. I s'pose I can. Maybe. For a beautiful lady like yerself. For a fee, o' course."

"Of course," Y'shtola replied back, her voice flat as board.

The man grinned widely and held out his palm. "Now that'll be--"

" _The end of the conversation,_ " Moenbryda announced, hauling herself to her feet, and the hyur by the collar along with her. A Sea Wolf roegadyn woman well over six feet tall who also happened to favor carrying around a giant axe, Moenbryda was not exactly a person that many liked to cross. This idiot adventurer--brazenness aside--was not an exception.

"Piss off, charlatan," she continued, shoving him back toward the bar. "A week-neglected pigsty is less full of shite. The adults are talking, now get lost!"

The adventurer opened his mouth to protest, then took a good, hard look at the enormous woman looming over him, and snapped it shut.

"Smartest thing you've done with your mouth all evening," Moenbryda told him. She jerked her head toward the door. Without another word, he slunk away.

"Well, that was something," Y'shtola said as she returned to their table. "An eventful conversation, if not a productive one."

Thancred grumbled into his drink. "Aye, Y'shtola, your point's been made. We'll stay in the Rising Stones for these kinds of discussions from now on."

"Oh, I'm not so certain, Thancred," the miqo'te mage replied. "I rather enjoyed watching Moenbryda here put the fear of Rhalgr into that man."

"I rather enjoyed doing it," Moenbryda said, grinning. "So, same place, same time tomorrow night?"

Thancred rolled his eyes, but he couldn't hide his smile. "Why not? Who am I to deny two terrifying ladies their fun?"

"No one at all, indeed," Y'shtola said.


	12. Tooth and Nail

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for mild gore at the end.

The real fight began midair.

From the ground, aye, there were arrows and swords and fire and sweat and blood. But when a dragoon's feet left solid earth, body hurtling skyward to meet a foe taken flight, that was the test and the struggle. Because up here, you were alone. Up here, there was no one at your back, no one to cover you, unless another dragoon was watching instead of tangled in their own private battle.

These days, to have another dragoon in your unit was a stroke of extraordinary luck. These days, their ranks had dwindled further than they had in centuries, and perhaps further than they ever had. It was nigh heresy to speak aloud, but that didn't stop the whispers, and it certainly didn't stop the knowledge: fierce Ishgard teetered on the brink. With all four vigils fallen, their borders were all but bare, and the lord commander was an old man now, certainly experienced and wise but also sluggish to act and showing his age. Other whispers wondered if the vigils might still stand if another also stood in his stead.

Estinien did not entirely agree, but Estinien had access to knowledge that most did not--the Eye of Nidhogg, that half-cursed, half-blessed, entirely precious relic of the Holy See, and through it he heard musings not of his own mind and felt feelings not of his own heart. He knew the dragons hit harder, flew fiercer, because the great wyrm urged them onward, even in his slumber. They were no stupid beasts, these enemies of Ishgard, and they knew the Calamity had rent them hard, split them open as they never had been before. With the very land in tumult--summer turned to winter before their very eyes, centuries of peasant wisdom on crops and game and forage turned to folly almost overnight--they were dreadfully vulnerable. Coerthas was a breached wall.

All this was not at the forefront of his mind as his feet slammed into the flying wyvern's back, but the knowledge roiled back there nonetheless. It drove him to fight even more ferociously than he had before, and Estinien Wyrmblood had never exactly been known to restrain himself when it came to the business of killing dragons.

He drove the point of his lance into the base of the wyvern's neck along with the spurs on his heels. The beast roared in pain and fury, and banked sharply midair, trying to rid itself of its assailant. But Estinien had done this more times than he could count, and he knew just how to lean, just how to cling, so that he stuck to that dragon like moss on granite.

He pressed the lance point further, twisting viciously, and felt the wind that scoured his cheeks as the dragon dove this time, making head-first toward the ground. At the last possible moment Estinien wrenched his weapon free and leaped again, hurling himself clear of the impact to land with shocking lightness in the snow some yalms away. His opponent roared again and shot toward him, blood dripping down the base of its neck from the open wound above. Estinien dodged and rolled, shoved his lance into the seam where the wyvern's forelimb met its body. Another shriek of pain met his effort, and the dragon swiped its massive paw, catching Estinien across his calf.

The impact was enough to send him tumbling head over heels, momentarily disoriented. He shot to his feet--he could feel the skin beneath his armor had parted in the impact of the blow--just in time to bring up one bladed gauntlet and slash across the beast's open snout. This he followed with another savage thrust of his lance, aiming for the dragon's eye.

He missed, but not by much.

Tooth and nail he fought. With his injured calf, he knew he had to end this battle quickly lest he falter and fall prey to the wyvern. Fortunately, his opponent also struggled. It favored its left foreleg where his lance had found flesh, and this made it slow to turn and dodge, hopping awkwardly on only three legs.

Gathering his strength, Estinien leaped again, clenching his teeth against the shooting pain in his leg. This time, he aimed for the crown of the beast's head, and he aimed true, falling like a star to bury Gae Bolg's point right between the wyvern's eyes.

The dragon screamed and thrashed, death throes sending the Azure Dragoon sailing back through the air. He managed to twist and land on his feet, though his left leg gave out beneath him, and he fell to his knees, panting. He raised his head and beheld his handiwork: one dead wyvern, his lance sticking out of its forehead like some cursed, void-sent unicorn.

Lurching to his feet, Estinien hobbled toward his kill to reclaim his weapon. It slid free with a sickening squelch, covered in blood and brains, a match for his gore-stained armor. Well, he'd have plenty of time to clean it all with his leg propped up on some crate back at camp, fresh stitches knitting the skin into yet another scar. He snorted. 'Twas one less dragon to threaten his homeland. Within the fortnight, injuries be damned, he'd make it at least one less again.

He gave his victim one last glance before turning and making for his unit, limping uneven footprints into the snow.


	13. Decay (Free Day)

At the bottom of Longmirror Lake, the ruins of Voeburt were slowly sinking into the mud. Lake grass grew between tiles where once trod mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews and cousins and lovers and friends. Crabs and crayfish and little snails hid under the decomposing remnants of furniture, fish swam in and out of empty window frames; the glass long since broken and returned to sand.

Here among the decay was only silence, only stillness, save for the soft sway back and forth of the gentle freshwater current. Occasionally an ancient shingle would loosen and drift down to the lake bed, a final resting place for a place finally resting beneath yalms of heavy water.

Once upon a time Voeburt had been a great kingdom, full of life and ferocity, children and knights, peasants and kings, a riot of color and clamor. Once music had played in the streets on festival days, once banners had hung from the buildings, flapping in the breeze, bright and proud in the sunlight. Voeburt's people had argued and laughed, danced and sang in her squares, got married in her churches, raised families in her houses, shopped in her marketplaces, and buried their dead in her graveyards.

Now all of Voeburt was a graveyard, though those who wished to know it would have to seek the knowledge far beneath the lake's surface.

Down here, little light penetrated the gloom, and that had been so even before the Lightwardens had been defeated and night returned to the sky. There was nothing to disturb the forgotten relics of a culture lost. Nothing to stir the ghosts of lives long gone. The final resting place of this once-great kingdom of Norvrandt was peaceful and mute, cold and calm. Whatever it once had been, now it was but memory, slowly becoming silt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, all my energy today went into working on chapter 2 of my aymeric/estinien AU fic so this is a short one. <3


	14. Part (NSFW)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW, be warned! I feel weird changing the whole work's rating for a single chapter's smut, so I don't think I will, but just so there's no ambiguity here: **this one is porn**. Oh, and since it's me... it's Aymeric/Estinien porn. Yep.

These were the nights most precious to him.

These were the nights when Estinien half-smiled and laid his hand against Aymeric's arm just so, stroking almost absently at the wool of his shirt sleeve, slowly bunching the fabric beneath his strong and calloused fingers. Aymeric knew what this touch meant, knew what the dragoon wanted, knew because there was hardly ever a night where he did not want it too.

Leaning forward, he saw his lover's lips part before he closed his eyes and pressed into the kiss. Slow at first, no reason not to savor the taste and feel of it, of the firm and tender contact, that first drag of their mouths against each other, heady as smoke and incense. Then Estinien raised his arms to encircle Aymeric's neck, drawing him in close, bodies melting together as the kiss deepened and turned into something less than chaste and more than sweet. Something dark and hungry, equally shared between the two of them.

From there it was never long a wait until they were half-tripping over themselves on the way to the bedroom, trying to move and touch and kiss and disrobe all at once, a mess of meeting perhaps more suited to a pair of fumbling adolescents, but, well, ever had Ishgard been a place of grand repression, particularly for two men in love with each other, so perhaps they could forgive themselves their clumsy over-eagerness. Things in their homeland were changing, aye, but things like this did not change overnight.

Unclothed at last, they fell together on the mattress, teeth and nails now added to the touches and the kisses, Estinien on his back, raking red marks down Aymeric's shoulder blades to overwrite the white scars the lash had left upon them in the Vault. Aymeric shoved his face into the side of his lover's neck, nipping along the skin to the hollow in between his collar bones where he sank his teeth deep enough to bruise. Estinien arched his back and called Aymeric's name, buried one of his hands into the thick locks of the knight's black hair.

Aymeric kissed his way down Estinien's body, pausing to suck at his nipples, whispering his lips along the lines of his ribs. That, he knew, bordered on tickling, and it put a wicked little smile on his face the way Estinien bucked and thrashed beneath him, gasping indignantly at the teasing. Aymeric grinned against his lover's belly, reaching to stroke those same sensitive tracts of skin, using his weight and his other hand to press Estinien's hips down into the bed. Like this, every time Estinien arched his back he could feel the underside of his erection slide against his sternum, could flex the muscles in his chest to provide just that extra bit of friction, and, _oh_ , if Estinien ever felt so inclined to bring himself to orgasm in such a fashion, Aymeric would thoroughly enjoy the experience.

Not tonight, though. Tonight Aymeric continued his lazy journey downward to part Estinien's thighs with his hands. The dragoon moaned as Aymeric wrapped his fingers around the base of that thick cock, parted his own lips to brush them against the tender, weeping crown. He would have smiled again, honestly, were it really possible with a cock in his mouth, because nothing pleased him more than rendering Estinien utterly insensate with bliss. No one save Estinien himself knew better than Aymeric the toll the long years of wielding the Eye had taken on the dragoon, and Aymeric would sweep all that suffering away, supplant every remnant of it with naught but shivering pleasure. So he worked his mouth and his hand together, long having learned the secrets of his lover's body, dragging his tongue along the soft flesh rigid with desire, making a ring with thumb and forefinger to draw slowly in the wake of his lips.

"Halone's _fucking_ tits, Aymeric!" Estinien called, and Aymeric was forced to release him so he could laugh, delighted, at the gasping curses that let him know _exactly_ how good a job he was doing.

Not much later, Aymeric parted his lover in another way, slicked with salve to ease the passage of his own hardened length inside, Estinien's powerful legs wrapped around his waist, hips lifting with eager want. Eyes locked, they moved their bodies together like this, a rolling, rocking rhythm, Aymeric angling his aim to graze against that particular spot within his partner. It was easy to know when he'd gotten it just right, because Estinien's stormy blue eyes rolled back in his head and his mouth opened wide in a silent gasp, cheeks flushed and pink with heat. He was close now, they both were, and Aymeric reached between them to cradle Estinien's erection in his fisted fingers, stroking him at last to completion.

A few moments later, Aymeric followed his lover over the edge.

He sank to his elbows, panting, letting his forehead press against the very top of Estinien's chest, against the same place between his collar bones that he'd earlier marked with his teeth. Beads of sweat slid down his back and arms as Estinien idly ran his fingers through Aymeric's hair, gently scraping his nails along the scalp. Aymeric closed his eyes, felt the heave of his lover's chest, the heat of his skin and gentle pressure of his hand against the back of his head. Estinien, he knew, never long remained in Ishgard. His work was out in the world, forging alliances with the dragons he had so long called his enemies and seeking the means to right the wrongs that still weighed heavily upon the dragoon's heart. Aymeric did not begrudge him this. Ever had Estinien's been a shepherd's heart, seeking his flock over hill and dale. Ever did he always return to his home, to Aymeric's arms, when his wanderer's feet grew weary.

Still, Aymeric carried the quiet torch of hope in his heart, that someday those wanderer's feet would beat one last pathway to his door to set down their burdens forever, and the two of them would be parted no longer.


	15. Ache

She's not that familiar a face at Camp Bronzelake, not really, despite the time she's spent here over the years. Her visits have been infrequent enough that only the proprietors and the more senior Maelstrom officers stationed here give her that small, knowing smile and the slight nod of their head, gestures that say, _Yes, Warrior, we see you_. It's not relief that she feels knowing that she can yet both be known and left in peace but something more akin to an ache, a hollowness beneath her breast that is nonetheless warmed by those little smiles, the simultaneous acknowledgement and rejection, comforting in its own way.

Stripped nearly nude, she sinks into the steaming, turquoise water of the hot springs with a sigh. The road has been long and dusty and tiring, and she--while not old yet, not at all--is not as young as she used to be, and the life she leads is a hard one, physically, by any measure. There are scars where her skin used to be smooth, nightmares where once there had been dreams. She is not broken, far from it, but she is weary and sore, both in body and in heart.

She leans her head back against the rocks and looks to the sky, blue and clear here on the Source, and sees instead something yellow and sickly, opaque and seething with filaments of unbalanced aether. She remembers how after a few weeks on the First, that sky had weighed on her like a fist ground between her shoulders, and once again wonders how anyone had managed to survive an entire lifetime--grow up, raise a family, grow old--under that blasted sky without going utterly mad. Maybe, though, if it was all you ever knew...

She sighs. Well, the Norvrandt sky had been restored, at least, to blue on a sunny day and black on a clear night, and cloudy and gray whenever rain or storms crowded the heavens. She knows, too, that in time, so would the land be restored, though she doubts she will live to see it at full fruition. She doubts she will live to see the full fruition--or consequence, perhaps--of most of what she fights for, but that has always been the case. The battles they pick, the fights they fight, they have never been for the here and now but for the future, for the ones that will walk the road after them. May the wounds she suffers ease the passage of those who follow in her wake.

Her eyes fall closed, the hot water swirling around her skin. It leeches the ache from her muscles and bones, lulls her to doze, safe and warm for now, beneath a sky she knows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eh bleh I think I'm starting to flag with these. Halfway through, c'mon, you can do it!


	16. Lucubration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS PROMPT WORD SENT ME

A shadow fell across Moenbryda where she sat studying at her desk, prompting her to look up. She couldn't help but smile at the familiar sight--tall, lanky Urianger, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck and clutching a sheaf of papers in his hand.

She leaned back in her chair, hooking her elbow over the back. This was a familiar ritual, but she'd still make him ask aloud.

"Well, out with it then, my friend," she said.

Urianger looked sheepish. "I had wondered if thou wouldst consent to evaluate my report for our aetherology course in advance of my submission."

Moenbryda had figured it would be something like this. Her smile widened. "Urianger, that report isn't due for another three weeks!"

He nodded solemnly. "That I do know. However, I would allow myself adequate time for revisions, should they prove necessary."

Urianger's work rarely required the kind of revisions that would take three weeks to complete, but his determined dedication to his studies was one of his charms, as far as Moenbryda was concerned. One of his _many_ charms, in all honesty. Though many of their classmates liked to roll their eyes and derisively write Urianger off as stiff and overly-serious, Moenbryda had long since noted the silly streak within her classmate's earnestness, his steadfast willingness to meet almost anyone exactly where they were and his gently self-deprecating sense of humor. She liked him well, and enjoyed his company.

It didn't hurt that he was rather good-looking, too.

"All right then, Urianger, hand it over. I'll take a look."

He gave her his pile of papers, and she began to leaf through them.

"Seven hells, Urianger! It's only supposed to be ten pages long. This isn't a report, this is a _treatise_."

The tall elezen shifted his weight from foot to foot. "Aye, however, I would posit the suggested length to be entirely too restrictive. Ten pages is hardly adequate for such an expansive topic as the aetheric properties of the Lifestream!"

Moenbryda cocked her head at him. "That's a given, Urianger. There are Sharlayan scholars who spend their entire careers studying the Lifestream! This is meant to be an overview!" She held up her hand as she saw him open his mouth to speak. "But I'm not the one you need to worry about. Professor Rayasoro will mark you off again if you turn in something too long, you know this."

Urainger's face looked pained, as if it physically hurt him to consider shortening the length of his aetherology lucubration. "Aye, well do I understand that of which thou speaketh. 'Tis thusly that I hoped thou wouldst be willing to aid in mine endeavor to shorten it."

"Ah ha, so the truth comes out," Moenbryda teased. "You don't need me to review your assignment, you need me to edit it!"

"If thou wouldst," Urianger replied, with somber gravity.

Moenbryda couldn't suppress her laugh. How could she possibly refuse? She liked him so, this sweet, soft-spoken young elezen man.

"All right, then," she said. "I'll do it. But you owe me dinner at the tavern. At _least_ once."

Urianger nodded. "It shall be as thou dost wish."


	17. Fade

It was like how Ysayle had died, aether bursting and shimmering in a great, burning shower. Thousands of little points of light, like a firework exploding. A life expiring, this time, instead. All primals died that way, though when Yotsuyu passed, there was one great difference: she left behind her body. Ysayle, Sparkling remembered, herself burst too, into a great aetheric nebula there before Azys Lla. Perhaps it was because of the crystal she wielded, perhaps because she had been one of Hydaelyn's chosen, or perhaps because her faith had been strong and true, unlike Yotsuyu's. Ysayle had died for hope, Yotsuyu for despair.

After the battle in Castrum Fluminis--she supposed it could be called a victory, though it didn't feel much like one--the Warrior of Light sat on the shores of the river in the Glittering Basin and watched the night fade into dawn. The wind that blew steadily down across the water was chill, these last hours before sunrise always the coldest of the night. She was weary, she realized. Fighting the Garleans was not at all like fighting the dragons had been. Nidhogg had raged beyond reason, it was true, but it had been Nidhogg alone whose will drove the Horde, and when he had been defeated, the rest had scattered.

Somehow, she didn't think that, were anyone to defeat Varis outright, the Empire would evaporate, as the draconic Horde had. For all Nidhogg's bloodthirst, it was never conquest that he had craved. He hadn't wanted to dominate or control or subjugate, he'd wanted to destroy. Somehow--as bizarre, as bone-chilling, as it was to contemplate--somehow, that had been less devastating.

By contrast, she feared the Garleans would never stop until they were either routed utterly--all legions' heads removed, all leaders disposed of, all organization and resource dismantled and scattered to the winds--or until they had conquered the entirety of the three continents and crushed them all under their boot heels.

 _Better to die in dragonfire_ , Sparkling thought grimly.

She stood as the first true light began to break in the east, as the curve of the sun finally crested the line of the horizon. Her comrades were waiting for her, and her fight was not finished. She whispered one last prayer over the shimmering water for the sake of Yotsuyu, the bitter young woman who had hardly even been given a proper chance to live. She hoped that her soul would fade too, quietly, with grace, into the Lifestream, to be born anew to a kinder fate.


	18. Panglossian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, holy shit, this prompt word.

Aymeric had always assumed that he and his fellow commander Ser Zephirin were on friendly, if not close, terms, but he knew his error the moment he walked into the Congregation the day after the announcement came from the Holy See that it was he who was to succeed Ser Trayeau de Clovent as lord commander of the Temple Knights, and not the younger knight. Ser Zephirin was leaning against the staircase at the back of the main room, thumbing through a pile of reports, a crease furrowed into his brow, when the sound of Aymeric's footsteps caused him to look up. The moment his gaze met that of his superior-to-be, the look on his face turned cold enough to match the Coerthan weather.

 _Ah_ , Aymeric thought. Well, the reaction was disappointing but he could forgive Zephirin his poor mood for the time being. He had been the favored candidate, after all, and Aymeric's appointment had certainly come as a surprise to nearly everyone in the Temple Knights, Aymeric himself included.

"Good morning, Ser Zephirin," Aymeric said. He would not start things off this day by acting differently than he would have on any other day.

Zephirin snorted and did not return the greeting, instead returning to perusing his reports. Aymeric chose to ignore the disrespect and made his way to the bookcase to retrieve a set of maps of the highlands. Even before yesterday's announcement, he had been planning to spend the day reviewing the distribution of the troops under his command and to discuss their redistribution with Lord Commander Trayeau in the afternoon. He saw no reason to not continue his work, unexpected upcoming promotions or no.

He turned to make his way back to his own office and begin his work when Zephirin's low voice stopped him dead in his tracks.

"Tell me, Ser Aymeric," he said, "did your father force the hand of the Holy See?"

Aymeric knew of which "father" Zephirin spoke, but he had no intention of rising to the blatantly obvious bait.

"'Twould come as a great shock to me were it so," Aymeric replied. His many years' experience with this type of jab served to keep his voice even and unruffled in his response. "Considering that he died some six summers past."

The corner of Zephirin's mouth twitched. "Very funny, Ser Aymeric."

"I assure you, I make no jest of my parents' passing, Ser Zephirin," Aymeric said. He allowed a bit of steeliness to creep into his voice. "'Tis no pleasant thing to bury members of your family. I am certain you understand."

Zephirin narrowed his eyes, and Aymeric once again made to leave and be about his work.

"And thus does the unremarkable, naive, Panglossian bastard rise to take the reins of Ishgard's Temple Knights," Zephirin said to his back, in a voice all but dripping with disgust. "How far has Ishgard fallen, indeed."

It was not, not by a long shot, the cruelest thing anyone had ever said to him about his heritage or his personality or his service over the years. But Aymeric did have to admit that the words stung far more than he would have liked, because up until about ten minutes prior, he had believed his relationship with his fellow commander to have been one of mutual respect. _How quickly such illusions are punctured_ , he thought, _when one is perceived to have stepped beyond their place_.

Aymeric allowed himself to, ever so minutely, straighten his spine and square his shoulders, to lift his chin just enough to be perceptible, if barely. He was used to authority, now, had served as lieutenant and captain and commander and, soon, lord commander, and Ser Zephirin--regardless of his feelings--would have to get used to it, too. When Aymeric spoke, his voice came out clear and confident, and he did not turn to face his comrade.

"Ishgard shall never fall, Ser Zephirin."

He did not look back.


	19. Where the Heart Is

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am elf trash. Sorry. (Mostly.)

The night was young in Ishgard, cold and wet, a steady autumn rain pouring from the heavens to sluice off gables and gutters. Estinien avoided getting an icy wash of it down the back of his cloak by traversing those same gables instead of the streets until he reached the rooftop he sought near the eastern edge of the Pillars district. Briefly, he considered doing the proper and expected thing and using the main entrance, but then he grinned to himself and hopped down into the alley along the side of the house to pound his fist on the back door that lead to the kitchens, instead.

He didn't have long to wait before he heard the tread of brisk steps on flagstone, then warm yellow light spilled out from the house as the door opened, to reveal the familiar face of Tiraux, Aymeric's steward.

"I do say, Walden, I appreciate early deliveries but not an _entire day ea_ \--oh." Tiraux raised one eyebrow as he realized the person at the door was not who he'd assumed it to be. "Ser Estinien, truly, would it kill you to come in the front?"

Estinien only grinned wider as he stepped inside. "Where's the fun in that?"

"I shall simply be grateful 'tis not the guest room balcony this time, I suppose," Tiraux said, shutting the door behind him. The manor larder and kitchens were cozy and warm, a welcome refuge from the dismal weather. Estinien dropped his rucksack and propped up his lance by the door, then hung his sopping cloak on a peg and tugged off his boots. It always felt good to be out of the rain, but to be out of the rain in Aymeric's home, well, that was the best.

Tiraux waited patiently for him to finish shedding his weapons and outer wear, arms crossed, half-smiling. "The Lord Viscount is at his work in the parlor," he said, "and I was just about to take him up his evening tea. Might I hazard that you would rather?"

"Aye, you might," Estinien answered. Tiraux nodded smartly and Estinien followed him into the kitchen, where the old steward set a second cup and saucer on the readied tray and handed it to him. With one last broad smile, Estinien headed up the stairs toward the front parlor. He could well envision the scene that awaited him: Aymeric, seated on the comfortable sofa facing a cheery fire, oil lamps burning brightly, meticulously working his way through the pile of papers on the coffee table before him. Estinien played a little game with himself, trying to guess exactly which type of papers held his lover's attention tonight. Reports from the Congregation? Missives from other Alliance nations? Committee minutes from the House of Lords? He settled on the last of those as he shouldered his way through the parlor door, leaving it to swing in his wake. There indeed was Aymeric, exactly has Estinien had imagined him, head bowed over a book open in his lap, dressed head to toe in soft black wool that matched his hair and somehow elongated his already elegant frame, making the slender, handsome man seem even more so.

"Ah, thank you Tiraux," Aymeric said, not looking up. "If you would be so kind as to set it on the table here."

Estinien smiled to himself, ignoring the request, and left the tray on the banquette at the back of the room. Quickly, he padded up behind the sofa and covered Aymeric's eyes with his hands.

"What are--?" Aymeric began, then Estinien laughed and leaned down to kiss him on the crown of his head.

"Boo," said the dragoon.

"Estinien!" Aymeric twisted to look up, beaming, and Estinien's heart skipped a beat in his chest. Gods, he was so lovely, and that smile of his, well, it could light an entire room. Greedily, Estinien sang a little to himself inside, _mine, mine, he's all mine_. "I did not expect you until the morrow!"

"Couldn't wait," he replied, then bent to properly kiss his beloved hello, pausing to savor the taste of those perfect lips that he had so missed these last few weeks. Aymeric made a little contented noise when he pulled away to fetch the tea tray and set it on the coffee table before taking his seat on the sofa beside him.

"I will not pretend to be other than delighted that it was so," the knight said, the brilliant smile still lighting his face. He shut the book and set it to one side. He pulled Estinien into his arms to kiss him again, sighing happily. "It shall be nice to have company on this very dreary eve."

Estinien leaned into the embrace, into what another might have called a _snuggle,_ but which the oft-surly dragoon would never admit to be such. He pressed his face into the side of Aymeric's neck, inhaling the scent of him, warm skin and wool and the faintest touch of salve and scented oil. 'Twas good to be here, to be home, out of the cold and rain and into the arms of the man he loved, letting his eyes fall shut as one of Aymeric's strong hands traced a soothing pattern over the back of his shoulders.

"Would you care for some tea, my dear?" asked the knight, kissing Estinien lightly on the temple.

"Aye," he replied, sitting up. Despite himself, he yawned. He had traveled hard through the day to make it here by night instead of stopping at Falcon's Nest like originally planned, and now that he could relax, he was feeling the extra effort. Aymeric smiled at him again and poured them their tea, leaving Estinien's black and doctoring his own, as ever, with a drop of his favored birch syrup and a splash of milk. They sipped at their cups in comfortable silence for a time, simply enjoying each other's company.

"So, what is it this time, then?" Estinien asked, nodding toward the book. "Business from the House of Lords?"

Aymeric laughed, and, surprisingly, a slight flush crept into his cheeks. "Nothing so sensible tonight, I fear. No, ah, 'tis... well." Aymeric's embarrassment was obvious and Estinien's eyebrows shot up his head in sudden interest. "...I promised the younger Fortemps I would give it a try."

"Oh _ho_ _!_ " Estinien deposited his teacup on the table and reached to snatch the book instead, grinning widely. "And just _what_ , pray tell, does _Emmanellain de Fortemps_ so insist you read?"

Aymeric's blush deepened, but he laughed. "Well..." He waved one hand in resignation. "Do peruse the text and find out."

Estinien let the pages fall open at random and began to read.

_"Oh," cried the voluptuous maiden, ample chest heaving through her sobs, "Though thou art truly the only love of mine own heart, I fear my parents would never consent to a match such as ours! For thou art but a lowly huntsman in my father's employ, and I am his lordship's only daughter! 'Tis my solemn duty to marry for wealth and save my family's lands from falling into the hands of my wicked uncle!" She threw her hand to her forehead in inconsolable distress, crystalline tears flowing down her round and rosy cheeks._

_"Heart of my hearts," replied the poor, handsome huntsman, gathering her curvaceous figure into his mighty arms, "Never would I dare place thine virtue in jeopardy. For thou art as the sun in my sky, bringing joy to my endless, weary days. I shall keep thine smile close in memory always, that it may light a track for me through the dark and treacherous wood."_

"By the Fury, Aymeric, this is terrible," Estinien said.

"Drivel to a word," the knight agreed, taking a sip of his tea.

"Are there dirty bits?" Estinien asked, leafing through the pages. 

"Chapter eight," Aymeric replied, sanguinely. Estinien barked a laugh. He flipped to the book's front matter and read the title aloud. "'Home is Where the Heart Is, by Ser Valliant de Coeur.' By the Twelve. Could it be any stupider?"

"'Tis hard to imagine."

"Why in the name of Halone's left arse cheek are you reading it?"

Aymeric shrugged. "Something different? In all honesty, it makes me laugh. And," he paused for effect, "I will confess I look forward to the look on the young Lord de Fortemps' face when I return it and remind him that blushing maidens are not to my taste."

Estinien threw back his head and howled with laughter. " _Aymeric_ ," he said. His lover shrugged.

"I must needs entertain myself somehow," he replied.

Estinien, still smiling, tossed the book aside and leaned over to slide his arms around Aymeric's shoulders. "How about _I_ entertain you a bit?" he said, brushing his lips along the knight's long, gracefully pointed ear. He delighted in the little shiver that followed, the frisson that he could feel shoot through Aymeric's body.

"An enticing proposition," Aymeric murmured, then turned his head to capture Estinien's mouth in a deep kiss. The dragoon sighed happily into it, glad to be held, to be warm, to be home with Aymeric, where indeed his own heart resided, though far less melodramatically than in poor-quality Ishgardian literature.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmfao I don't even know what happened here. Wanted this to be just tooth-rotting fluff and instead it turned into Aymeric reading shitty romance. What even is characterization? I need a nap.


	20. Orchesta (Free Day)

The first time she heard a proper orchestra, it was in Ul'dah. She'd heard _of_ them, previously, during her travels, heard that such a thing existed where dozens or of musicians sat together and performed a piece of music in perfect harmony, and it had seemed so grand and strange at the time. Where she came from, on the northern slopes of Abalathia's Spine, land of volcanic basalt fields and mineral hot springs, there were no orchestras. There were festivals, and harpers, and floutists and singers and performers of all stripes, but, well, the Hellsguard had no cities. By the standards of the centuries-old royal line of Ul'dah, she was a peasant wanderer at best. She assumed that was why she felt most at home in Limsa Lominsa out of all the Eorzean city-states, because half the pirates there seemed equally out of sorts to find themselves among the masonry of grand buildings instead of the mast of a rickety old boat.

Still, she could not help but be swept up in the grandiosity of it all, with the enormous performance hall with the elaborately painted ceiling and hilariously intricate carvings along the balconies and boxes. She knew it to be but a show for wealth, a flaunting of power and influence, but it was, nonetheless, a delight. Despite herself, it twinged in her imagination, set her to wondering what it might be like to grow up a spoiled daughter of a monetarist, and the moment the thought crossed her mind, she snorted with laughter to herself. Imagine. _Her_ , seven fulms tall and built like a cinder block, some well-bred waif among the wealthy. Well, it was good for a laugh, at least. Alphinaud, her dutiful accompaniment to the show, looked over at her quiet chuckling, clearly puzzled, but he had no time to inquire after what had stirred her mirth, because the lights were dimming and the show was starting.

It was lovely. She'd had no idea what to expect but her expectations were surpassed nonetheless. Caught up in the swells and surges of sound and melody, she was transfixed, held in thrall to the music. She tried to focus on one thing, on the viols with their elegant bows, or the trumpeters, bright and brassy, but it was the whole of it, not the parts, that made the difference.

After the show she and Alphinaud wandered down the streets of the golden city, comfortably silent in the post-performance lull. Eventually, the young elezen craned his neck to look up at here.

"Well, Sparkling, what did you think?"

She shook her head, smiling.

"I think I've never seen anything like it."

He laughed a little, smiling brightly.

"My mother loves music. She never misses the opportunity to go to a show."

"I can see why."

"Would you want to go again?" he asked her, round blue eyes searching her face.

"Aye, I think I would. Mayhap after this banquet thing tomorrow night, we could do so."

Alphinaud nodded. "That sounds like a lovely idea."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that took an unexpected turn for the dark at the end!


	21. Foibles

In general, the Warrior of Light was known to be dedicated, determined, and dogged. 'Twas she who had, after all, spearheaded the Scions' efforts to halt the Garleans' incursions into Eorzea. 'Twas also she who had willingly shouldered the burdens of aloof Ishgard as her own, helping to put to rest a thousand-year conflict that nonetheless had little impact beyond the borders of Coerthas. 'Twas she who had fought for the freedom of both Ala Mhigo and Doma, uniting two nations at opposite ends of the world in common cause together and helping to forge bonds beyond distance almost insurmountable. And, in the end, it was also she who had held the festering powers of the Lightwardens at bay within her own flesh until it could be safely discharged and destroyed.

Dedicated. Determined. Dogged.

Except, occasionally, if you could get her talking about her friends.

Tataru did this, sometimes, just because she could. Just because, since all that business with the Rift and the First, she often found her sitting at a table in the Rising Stones staring blankly off into space, cup of tea forgotten before her and going cold. When she got like this, Tataru knew that the best thing for her to do was to hop into a seat across from her and ask--not _what's wrong?_ or _I'm here to listen_ but, instead, _tell me about_...

And Tataru would fill in the blank.

_Tell me about Ysayle's cooking._

_Tell me about Hien and Gosetsu, drinking sake._

_Tell me about Lyse and M'naago at the Peering Stones._

_Tell me about Lyna dancing._

_Tell me about Aymeric at Snowcloak._

And Sparkling's eyes would refocus, find Tataru's face, and after a moment, she'd smile, and do as the savvy lalafellan woman had asked. If the story got long enough, the gleam would return to her eye as she remembered some detail, some foible of the subject of the story, perhaps, the way Ysayle always stirred the stew pot equally clockwise and counter-clockwise, and when pressed, vehemently denied that it was so. Or the way that Hien needled Gosetsu, reverting almost instantly to a boy and his admired mentor when they laughed together, not a king and his subject. Or how Lyse always muttered asides under her breath. How M'naago always stroked the fletching of her arrows in the exact same way, every time she notched an arrow to her bow. How Lyna made the same little frown of concern each time the Crystal Exarch talked about the Flood of Light. How Aymeric tilted his head to right when he was thinking--always the right, never the left.

From there her stories would meander, snowballing one detail into another, running down the hill of reminiscence and bounding off-track, ending with some anecdote about Hellsguard spring festivals or that rice pudding she once had in Gridania, god, she still remembered how rich and spiced it had been, warm and filling. With the way her she always ended up a hundred malms from where she started, one could be forgiven for assuming her approach to her duties the same. But such was not the case. 'Twas almost as if she gave herself lease to float and wander, here in their home in Mor Dhona, in a way that she would not anywhere else.

Tataru didn't mind. It was one of her friend's little quirks, one of the things that made her herself.


	22. Argy-bargy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When in doubt, revert to elf trash.

"I don't think they realize I can see them," Estinien said.

"Not exactly surprising, my dear," Aymeric replied, "considering most people don't literally eavesdrop."

Estinien looked back over his shoulder at the knight. "I'm not the one eavesdropping--they are! If you'd come out here and look you'd see it yourself."

"I am not particularly interested in climbing out the window to join you," Aymeric said. "And, I do beg to differ, you are, quite literally, eavesdropping."

"I am on the _lintel_ , not the eaves," Estinien retorted, "and I'm not _dropping_ anywhere, I'm _perching_."

Aymeric smiled to himself. He was indeed perching like some lanky gargoyle, crouched on the aforementioned lintel of the window just over from the one against which Aymeric was leaning, though he was firmly on the _inside_ of the building.

"Bloody petitioners," Estinien muttered. "Can't even leave you alone after hours. The door is locked for a reason!"

Aymeric arched an eyebrow. They had actually earlier locked the door to his office at the Congregation, but the reason had been to prevent any intrusions upon what had turned into an impromptu intimate engagement on top of Aymeric's desk, not because it had actually been _after hours_ at the time. Well, it was after hours _now_ , but that was why they had retired to the lord commander's quarters on the building's second storey. It was honestly a little strange that the would-be guests were still there, waiting futilely in the alleyway and hovering over the side entrance. Fury, but they were determined.

"I'm going to try and get closer," Estinien said. "See if I can hear them."

Aymeric didn't have time to point out that the dragoon really _was_ eavesdropping at this point before he had hopped elegantly away.

The lord commander remained where he was, shoulder braced against the window frame, down to his casual clothes, shirt only half buttoned back up after his earlier disrobing. The evening was chilly as Ishgardian evenings always were, and of course leaving the window open didn't particularly help warm him up, but Estinien could do that when he returned. Which he did, after only a few minutes.

He shut the window behind him, a strange look on his face, one hand clapped firmly over his mouth. Instantly, Aymeric tensed.

"What is it? Is aught amiss?" the knight asked.

Estinien shook his head, then unexpectedly started laughing. Aymeric blinked in surprise.

"They think--" He cut off, snickering, "Aymeric, they think we were _fighting_."

"What?"

The dragoon straightened and tossed his long white hair over one shoulder. "The exact words were--" Estinien screwed up his face and pitched his voice in a rather poor imitation of an Ishgardian Brume accent, the round vowels of his own Eastern Highlands brogue completely unsuitable for it, "'What could you make of it, Sebastien? The Foundation Review will pay dearly for news of the Lord Speaker and his dragoon in an argy-bargy!'"

"A _what_ _?_ " Aymeric said. Soundlessly, he made the shape of the words with his mouth. _Argy-bargy._

"A spat," Estinien supplied, grinning. "Vernacular only suited to the likes of low class lowlifes, such as myself."

Aymeric shook his head.

"I, uh, guess they could overhear us a little earlier," Estinien continued. "But... they failed to draw the, er, _correct_ conclusion."

Aymeric considered this. "Well," he said, "you do get a bit growly, sometimes, my dear."

"And _you_ have a filthy mouth," Estinien retorted. Aymeric shrugged. 'Twas true. He did.

"I'm more concerned about their desire to sell gossip about us to the newspaper, to be quite honest," he said.

Estinien shrugged. "Lies and slander."

"Nothing unfamiliar to me, aye," Aymeric conceded. He stepped forward and gathered Estinien in his arms. "I wonder, Estinien, could we also convince the Congregation housekeepers that we are engaged in a--what was it, again?"

"An argy-bargy."

"An _argy-bargy_." Aymeric paused. "Well?"

Estinien grinned and began to undo the rest of the buttons on Aymeric's shirt. " _Well_ , let's find out."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had no idea what to do here, omg.


	23. Shuffle

Thancred turned the worn old deck over, slowly shuffling the cards. It was more of a thing to do, really, something to keep his hands busy while his eyes scanned the streets of Ul'dah from where he sat at a table beneath an awning. In the shade the heat was bearable, but in the street the sunlight baked the red clay paving stones hot as a blacksmith's forge, a bright and golden misery. He watched the passersby shuffle along before him, off to do their shopping or fetch their laundry or call upon a friend. A familiar scene, nothing out of the ordinary. He'd been sitting her for hours, waiting for his quarry, but perhaps today was not the day for it. Perhaps even the unscrupulous louts of the Ul'dahn underbelly took their leave of their unsavory engagements when it got like this outside.

Sighing, he ordered another ale, and dealt himself another hand of solitaire. Seemed he had a long and boring afternoon before him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoo boy I am struggling here. One more week. One more week.


	24. Beam

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MOAR  
> ELF  
> TRASH

"Aymeric, would you do me a favor?"

Ishgard's lord commander looked up from where he was sitting by the remnants of the morning's campfire repairing the fletching on several arrows from his quiver. "Of course," he said, "anything for my dear friend."

Sparkling plopped down on ground beside him. "When Alphinaud and Estinien get back from fishing, I'm going to tell Estinien he should teach Alphinaud how to throw daggers."

Aymeric furrowed his brow. "Pray, my friend, may I ask... why would you do such a thing?"

She waved one hand dismissively. "It's a long story. Suffice to say I'm going to ask him--and he's going to say no."

Aymeric nodded. "Aye, I daresay he would."

"Right. So I need you to back me up."

"Pardon?"

The Warrior of Light gazed solemnly into her friend's piercing blue eyes, pinning them with her own equally intense green ones. "The favor I would ask of you is that you help me convince Estinien that teaching Alphinaud to throw daggers is a marvelous idea."

Aymeric de Borel's perfect mouth fell open in perfect surprise. "I--ah. Well, in all honesty--"

" _Please_ , Aymeric." Sparkling clasped her hands together under her chin as if in prayer and did her best impression of a begging puppy. Which, honestly, wasn't very good because neither "adorable" nor "passably innocent" were really in her repertoire of convincing facial expressions. "My honor as a Warrior of Light rests upon it!"

Aymeric lifted one elegant black eyebrow, clearly unconvinced. And yet. His mind drifted back to all the ludicrous things he'd asked of her during her time in Ishgard, and a twinge of guilt needled his ribs. Her pleading look remained, and he sighed.

"Very well," he said. "I shall do as you ask. However--"

"Fantastic!" she interrupted, slapping him on the back hard enough to make him cough. "That's just fantastic. I knew I could count on you!"

Aymeric opened his mouth to finish his original sentence, which was going to be the request that in return for his cooperation she reveal the origin of her desire to make Estinien teach Alphinaud how to throw daggers, but before he could, the pair of them walked back into view, fishing poles slung over their shoulders. Alphinaud proudly carried a string of gleaming trout.

"What a delightful lunch the two of you have brought back for us!" Sparkling said cheerily. "Looks like we'd best get the fire going again."

Alphinaud beamed with obvious pride while Estinien merely grunted, but Aymeric could read him like a book by now, and he could tell the dragoon was well pleased.

"Estinien taught me how to scale and gut them," Alphinaud said, handing them over to Sparkling, who was readying her cookpan.

Estinien snorted. "I did my best, at least."

"Which means that if they're poorly done, it's your fault for shoddy teaching," Sparkling replied smoothly. Estinien harrumphed, glared at her, and crossed his arms. She only laughed at him and began to fry the fish, their mouth-watering aroma filling the air.

They ate their lunch in comfortable leisure. They were on their way to the hot springs at Camp Bronze Lake, Estinien's weeks-long insistence that Aymeric take a break from his work having finally borne fruit when Sparkling offered to dangle the promise of a good old fashioned _adventure_ before Ishgard's most dedicated public servant, as well. And once Alphinaud had gotten wind of the plan, well, there had been no keeping him from joining them, really. Estinien grumbled and groused about it, but all of them--Estinien included, certainly--knew his bluster to be just that, and the four of them made a jolly set traipsing about the backwoods of northern La Noscea. Today was the last leg of their journey north, and they were in no rush whatsoever. They'd easily make the springs by nightfall, with time to spare.

Which gave Sparkling plenty of time to execute her little plan, whatever it was.

As they were all enjoying their comfortable fullness post lunch, she casually stretched her legs before her, leaning back onto her palms, and said, "You know, I've been thinking that it's really about time Alphinaud learned some less aetheric combat techniques."

Instantly, the young elezen's head turned as he fixed Sparkling in his gaze. To Aymeric, something about it seemed... almost _wary_ , as if he were expecting some manner of shenanigans.

"Whatever do you mean, Sparkling?" Alphinaud asked.

"Well, what if you drop your book? Or your aether is drained?" She shrugged her shoulders. "Many a time have I found myself full glad to know how to wield a lance, in addition to my spellbook."

Estinien snorted derisively. "You had better not be thinking of teaching the boy _lancework_ ," he stated, as if he himself hadn't begun his training even younger than Alphinaud.

"Of course not," Sparkling said smoothly, and Aymeric could see the segue coming from a mile away. Estinien had really handed it to her on a silver platter, honestly. "I was thinking something more along the lines of..." She paused and tilted her head to one side, pretending to consider. "...Throwing knives."

" _What?_ " Estinien said.

Alphinaud's mouth fell open, and oh, it was unmistakable now, the look on his face made it clear-- _he knew she was up to something_. Again, Aymeric wondered exactly _what_ had prompted the Warrior of Light to beg the favor of him that he was certain he was moments away from performing.

Sparkling shrugged. "Well, he's usually at a distance, see, we spellcasters nearly always are, so it seems he should learn something he can use from a that distance. Like throwing knives." She paused. "Or daggers. Don't you agree, Aymeric?"

Aymeric, too, pretended to consider the merits of teaching Alphinaud this technique. "To be sure, Sparkling has a point. I could see the merits in archery, such as what I practice, however, a bow and quiver of arrows are far bulkier to comport than a suite of throwing daggers, which can also serve the utilitarian functions of a common knife, in a pinch. Would you not agree, Estinien?"

Both the dragoon's and the scholar's mouths were open in unmitigated shock at the pronouncement. Clearly, neither of them could believe their long, pointed ears.

Sparkling positively beamed at Aymeric.

"Exactly, Lord Speaker! Truly, you read my mind. And!" She swept her arm grandly. "Who better to teach young Alphinaud than Estinien himself?"

Aymeric nodded, feeling somewhat bad over his part in this ongoing deception, but, he had to admit, also rather delighted by the effect it was having. "'Tis true that Estinien does have rather good aim with a throwing dagger. Doubtless he would make a fine teacher for young Master Alphinaud."

If Estinien had looked shocked before, now he looked both shocked and quite indignant, glaring daggers--not throwing them, fortunately--at his dark-haired lover.

" _Aymeric_ \--" he began.

"Truly," Aymeric interrupted, raising his voice ever so slightly. "I do believe it to be a positively _marvelous_ idea. A useful skill for the young man to learn. And who better to teach him than you, my dear?"

And then, Aymeric smiled at him.

It was, admittedly, a _tad_ unfair of him. He knew what effect his smile had on his dragoon. He knew it because he'd noticed, over the years, the way that Estinien would often suddenly lose his train of thought in the middle of a sentence, or suddenly stop in the middle of whatever it was he'd been doing, or once--memorably--misstep and bash his knee into the wall, when Aymeric smiled at him in just, _precisely_ the right way.

As he was doing now.

Estinien looked as if he would grind is own teeth to dust in his skull. He wasn't stupid, Estinien Wyrmblood, and at some level he likely could recognize what Aymeric was doing.

He was sure he'd get an earful for it later that night. But, well, he had made a promise to the Warrior of Light...

He batted his eyelashes at Estinien, once, for good measure. The corner of the dragoon's eye twitched.

"Fine!" Estinien threw his hands up in the air. "You want to learn to throw knives, Alphinaud? I'll teach you to throw knives."

"Um!" Alphinaud started, but Estinien was already stalking off into the wood, doubtless to find a tree that would serve for target practice. With one last, mysterious, backward glance at Sparkling, Alphinaud ran off after him.

When they were alone again, Aymeric cocked one eyebrow at the Warrior of Light, who was grinning like an idiot. "Satisfied?" he asked.

"Oh, very!" she replied, delighted. "You were fabulous. I appreciate it. Deeply."

"Now will you tell me what that was all about?" Aymeric asked.

She tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Mmm, not yet, I think. But all shall be made clear shortly, I hope!"

Aymeric shook his head. It seemed there was nothing for it but to wait.

An hour or so later, Sparkling was humming contentedly to herself while she annotated her caller's spellbook, and Aymeric had finished the fletching repairs he'd been working on before lunch. Footsteps prompted them both to look up to find Estinien and Alphinaud returning, once again, to camp.

"Ah, brilliant!" Sparkling said, smiling widely. "How'd it go?"

Estinien grunted, somewhat less good-naturedly than he had before. "Could've been worse, I suppose."

"I can hit the target," Alphinaud supplied.

"Great," Sparkling said, smile widening. "Fantastic." She held out her hand toward Alphinaud. "Don't forget the _final_ aspect of your lesson."

With a heavy sigh, Alphinaud made for his traveling pack, pulled out a bag of coins, and began to count them out.

Both Aymeric and Estinien looked first to Alphinaud, sorting his money, and then to Sparkling, who clearly expected a payout.

"Never bet against the Warrior of Light," she said.

Aymeric blinked. "You mean..."

"Oh, aye," she said, self-satisfied grin lacing her face. "Alphinaud here was quite certain that Estinien remained capable of refusing an outright request from the love of his life. I bet him otherwise."

"You--!" Estinien's glare landed first on Sparkling, then fixed itself on Aymeric. " _You!_ "

Aymeric held up both his hands, flushing red. "I had no idea, I swear!"

" _Borel!_ " the dragoon yelled, vaulting over the remains of the campfire and lunging at his most cherished companion, who shot to his feet and took off through the woods, silver-haired lover hot on his heels.

"Don't think _you've_ heard the end of this, either, Warrior!" the dragoon yelled over his shoulder as he disappeared into the trees after Aymeric.

Sparkling only shrugged her own shoulders, gently shaking with thoroughly entertained laughter, and pocketed her ill-begotten winnings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this while listening to meatball parade on loop, i'm sure it shows


	25. Wish

After all is said and done--Elidibus defeated, the Crystal Exarch merged with his namesake, as they all knew would happen, and all the necessary explanations are reassurances given--after all that, she sits alone on the grass in a dark corner of the Pendants. She can see the twinkle of the stars between the lightly rustling branches of the trees, and they are beautiful as ever. Here on the First the constellations are different from the Source, and as yet unnamed, for the people of this star have only recently begun to see others in the night sky.

She runs her thumb over the bright orange, etched stone that once belonged to Azem. Perhaps it still does, in some measure. She may be neither unsundered nor reforged by the standards of the Ascians, but with Lahabrea, Emet-Selch, and now Elidibus gone, and her own sharded soul merged with Ardbert's, she speculates that she may well be the closest, now, of all the pieces of the Ancients, to their original form. She has yet to decide how she feels about it. From a purely practical standpoint, it makes little difference, really. She has not suddenly procured any new memories or abilities. For that she must admit she is grateful, for considering the effects of the Hydaelyn's blessing, well, she has already seen plenty of memories not her own, and her other abilities she finds more and more to inspire ambivalence, not pride.

She wonders about the other pieces, on the other remaining stars, that would match the color of her own soul as Ardbert's had. Would she recognize them, now? She and Ardbert hadn't recognized each other. Would they, too, be Warriors of Light in their homelands, gifted by the goddess, doing their best to help and protect their people? What of the matching sharded souls of her friends? Did Alphinaud and Alisaie have a twinned pair, somewhere out there? Was there another ferocious queen as terrifying and awe-inspiring as Merlwyb? Did Lyse have an equally ebullient and courageous counterpart or parts, scattered across the other stars beyond the Rift?

If everything she's learned these past moons is true, all of these pieces were once one. It is difficult to contemplate.

Sparkling doesn't regret her choices or her actions on the First. She has done what she was called here to do, she has defended and preserved. She has saved lives. She has saved worlds. Despite Emet-Selch's grand illusions of the city of Amaurot and his blissful stories of life before the Sundering, she does not find herself wistful, or even all that curious. She knows they saw her, and all her compatriots, as lesser, but she has never, and refuses to, see herself or others that way.

Still. She tries to envision their lives, all these long, dark years of it. It wasn't all that long ago that she had ambled across La Noscea alongside Estinien and confessed to him things she yet dared not even say to the Scions. Her weariness. The heaviness of it all, bearing such gifts, and being thus the person to whom all others must, eventually, turn. It is still a struggle for her to accept that this is not only her life now, but forevermore until she passes, perhaps a half-century or so into the future, if the Garleans don't get her first.

She cannot imagine it stretching beyond that. For centuries. For millenia. For eons.

Again she smooths her thumb over Azem's brilliant stone. She doesn't feel sorry for them, the Ascians, not really, no. But there's a twinge of regret in her heart nonetheless, and she does, often, find the wish taking shape in her thoughts that somehow, someway, things could have been different.


	26. When Pigs Fly

"En garde, Alphinaud!" Alisaie half-crouched at the ready, her long saber pointed toward her twin brother, who took one look at her and sighed.

"Alisaie--" he began.

"Oh come on, Alphinaud!" She huffed and stood up, letting her sword arm drop to her side. "I need a sparring partner!"

"You mean you need a punching bag," he retorted, crossing his arms. "I cannot best you, and you know it!"

"And how will you ever, with that attitude?" she countered, setting one hand on her hip. "You're a talented spellweaver, act like it!"

Alphinaud sighed again but lifted his spellbook and summoned forth a carbuncle. "Very well, then, dear sister, if you insist."

Alisaie grinned at her twin and again lifted her blade. Without further prelude, she lunged forward in attack.

Alphinaud was better than he gave himself credit for, and he likely knew it, which was part of what irked Alisaie so. As if he were too good for sparring, or, rather more likely, as if he felt he shouldn't enjoy it as much as he did. Though the healing arts were clearly where the bulk of his talents lay, he knew how to fight and to defend himself, and Alisaie wasn't about to let him forget it. She'd never forgive him if he let something happen to himself sometime when she was not around, after all.

Of course, Alphinaud's penchant for conservatism on the battlefield made him a frustrating foe. He let her wear herself out with attacks, always himself on the defensive, dodging and blocking and only retaliating after she had made her move. Not that she expected differently of course. They were siblings, after all. Alphinaud's preferred tactics had their weaknesses, as did any tactic. In his case, it made him vulnerable to getting himself fenced in. Quite literally, in fact, when he faced his sword-wielding sister.

He didn't realize until it was too late, and then his back was up against the wall outside the Rising Stones, with nowhere to go. Eyes widening, he ordered his carbuncle after her, but it was no use. With a neat flick of her sword tip, Alisaie knocked the spellbook out of her brother's hand, sending it sailing off to the side to land open, pages down, in the dirt.

Alphinaud's third sigh was the longest and heaviest so far.

"Must you do that?" he asked, nodding toward the book. He made no move to retrieve it, for Alisaie's sword point was still aimed square at his throat.

She grinned and didn't move. "Do you yield?"

Alphinaud shot her a withering glare. "Of course I yield! Now let me get my spellbook before all the pages are ruined!"

With a laugh, Alisaie lowered her blade. That brother of hers, he was something else. They both knew the book was enchanted, the pages _couldn't_ be ruined, not by non-magical means, anyway. Still, Alphinaud carefully brushed dust off the cover and leafed through it to make sure nothing was folded back on itself or dog-eared before snapping it shut and tucking it under his arm.

"You know," he said, "I do believe I held out longer that time. Mayhap soon I shall be able to best you, after all."

Alisaie shook her head and let out a snort. "Mayhap, dear brother." She grinned. "When pigs fly!"


	27. Log (Free Day)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's prompt word brought to you by a random word generator.

Cid cursed to himself as he rifled through the messy piles of notebooks and papers strewn all about his desk, seeking the one he wanted. For him, this was a familiar dilemma, as was his muttered promises that, as soon as this current project was done, as soon as he had some free time, he would go through his things and properly organize them, get a filing system set up and everything, sort all the papers, put them neatly away to be easily and effortlessly located whenever they were needed.

Aye, these thoughts were familiar, as was the knowledge that he was kidding himself about it. He was old enough, and had been an engineer long enough, to know when he was full of shite. For the work was always the most interesting thing, see, not the documentation.

Cid's thoughts were interrupted when he moved one stack of papers to the side and found beneath it an old aetherometer--his favorite aetherometer, in fact--missing now for some few weeks.

"Oh!" he exclaimed out loud. "There you are!" He proudly picked it up and made as if to wipe it down, but, well, so thoroughly had it been covered by the other detritus on his desk that it was not in the least bit dusty. Smiling, he shoved it into his pocket. Well, that was an unexpected boon, at least. He'd already built a replacement of course, but it never hurt to have a spare aetherometer lying around, and Wedge could use the new one, anyway.

He returned to his searching. The particular item he sought was a log book, not that old, full of notes about the manacutters he, Biggs, and Wedge had designed in Ishgard alongside their colleagues at Skysteel Manufactory. He vaguely recalled some interesting material discoveries they'd made that hadn't been directly useful at the time, but which he'd remembered just the other day when considering some experimental upgrades to the Excelsior. He always liked to tinker, to improve upon what had come before, but now there was an added urgency to his desires. The Scions of the Seventh Dawn, and the Warrior of Light, were returned at last, and if that weren't surprising enough, nearly as soon as they'd come back, Sparkling had marched straight out of Revenant's Toll to the Crystal Tower, and returned--to everyone's shock--with none other than G'raha Tia in tow. The poor boy had seemed nothing short of bewildered, but Cid remembered him fondly, and was glad to see him again.

So they had all celebrated, of course. To hear all their voices again--Thancred, Urianger, Y'shtola, Alisaie, and Alphinaud, as well as G'raha--and to sit with them, share a drink and a laugh, listen to their extraordinary tales... Cid felt lighter, more invigorated, than he had in some time. But despite her triumph, the neither he nor the Warrior had forgotten what was brewing for them to the east, in Ilsabard. The VIIth Legion pushed forward despite the chaos that Estinien had helped sow in Garlemald, and Cid was certain that their coming trials would pit them once more against his former homeland. Best to prepare himself, and all of them, as much as possible.

A familiar, brown leather cover caught his eye, and he pushed a stack of notebooks to one side to reveal the one book he'd been searching for. He picked it up and leafed through the pages, a satisfied smile growing on his face. Here it was indeed, ink blots and all. Tucking it under his arm, he turned to leave and get back to work.


	28. Irenic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I'm so predictable but this if this prompt doesn't scream "Ser Aymeric de Borel, Viscount of House Borel, Lord Commander of the Temple Knights, Lord Speaker of the House of Lords*" then I don't know what does.
> 
> *damn Aymeric slow the fuck down you're gonna die of heart failure or something

It was, one had to admit, a rather strange thing for the Holy See to have elevated Ser Aymeric, of all possible candidates, to the position of lord commander. Only slightly less strange was Ser Aymeric's subsequent elevation of Ser Handeloup to second commander once he had been given lease to assemble his order of command. Ser Lucia to First Commander had been a given, she had served him faithfully as a squire and knight under his command for several years by that point and it was clear the deep trust and regard they held for each other. Handeloup was acquainted with Ser Aymeric, of course. Everyone was, at least through his reputation--both the one he'd earned as a careful strategist and thoughtful leader, and the one he hadn't as the rumored illegitimate son of the archbishop--but Handeloup had gotten to know him primarily when they'd both achieved the rank of commander about two years past. Nonetheless, he didn't feel he knew the man well. When he'd asked him the reason for his choice, the new lord commander had just smiled his striking, enigmatic smile and said that he'd long noticed Handeloup's mind for detail and organization. As the position of second commander oversaw much of the logistics of the Temple Knights and Knights Dragoon, Aymeric had deemed him the best fit for the job.

While extremely flattering, it had also been slightly unnerving to realize how closely Aymeric had been paying attention to his peers. Perhaps that was one of the reasons he had, in the end, been given the job over the favored candidate. Someone in the Holy See had clearly recognized Aymeric's own penchant for remembering details. More than some _one_ , because Handeloup doubted the Holy See would have been willing to weather the mild scandal of it all had they, as a group, not felt rather strongly about it.

Or perhaps, the darker thought crossed his mind, had they not been strong-armed into it by one of high enough rank.

Such musings were ungenerous, though, and he quietly reprimanded himself for it. But in truth, Aymeric _was_ a strange fit, not because Handeloup doubted his ability to lead--soldiers under his direct command had always demonstrated a steadfast, and sometimes surprising, degree of loyalty to him--but because the Holy See had only grown more aggressive in its demands upon the Temple Knights in the years following the Calamity, whereas Aymeric was rather infamous for his strategic conservatism. He was rarely willing to risk his troops on daring maneuvers or glorious forward offensives. His was a decidedly defensive approach to battle tactics, and one of the things he was routinely criticized for was his more irenic leadership tendencies. He would avoid conflict with the Dravanians where he could, or do his best to position the soldiers under his command so as to discourage enemy attack entirely. The Holy See, by contrast, constantly preached _victory_. They were interested not in the absence of skirmish, but the presence of triumph, even at great cost of Ishgardian life.

It seemed clear to Handeloup that Aymeric, by contrast, valued preserving Ishgardian lives over everything else. It did make him easy to respect, as a leader. Handeloup didn't wish to see his comrades--or himself, for that matter--die needlessly in futile, if glorious, battle.

Perhaps Aymeric had also noticed that about him, when he considered his options for second commander. Then the thought occurred to Handeloup--wasn't it interesting, somehow, how the leadership of the Temple Knights now seemed to ideologically divergent from that of the Holy See.

He frowned.

They all wanted the same thing, he was sure of it--an Ishgard safe, secure in her future, ravaged no more by war and tragedy. If the city's leadership differed somewhat in their various approaches as to how to bring that vision to fruition, well, that was only to be expected, of course. 'Twas simply the nature of man. He was surely overthinking this, and the strange, sudden unease in his gut was surely just a product of the generalized anxiety every soldier carried with them. He shook his head. Such musings were unproductive, and he had work to do--now more than ever before. He was certain it was nothing to fret over.

He put it out of his mind, and returned to his duties.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said this screamed "Aymeric" so of course I wrote from someone else's perspective, lol, go me.


	29. Paternal

Sparkling sat at the edge the giant crater in southern Ala Mhigo that everyone had started calling "The Yawn." Down there were the remnants of the Omega machine that had crashed battling the Shinryu primal that Ilberd had unleashed with the aid of the Eyes of Nidhogg. She grimaced. She'd lately spoken with Aymeric about it--unsurprisingly, he blamed himself, and also unsurprisingly, spared for himself none of the compassion he was so willing to extend to others. When she'd gently reminded him that she and Alphinaud could have equally chosen to ignore his suggestion and _not_ chuck the Eyes into the abyss around Ishgard, he'd blinked in surprise, as if the thought had never occurred to him.

She sighed. The catastrophe of Omega and Shinryu was, like most catastrophes, not the result of a single, large, poorly-considered action, but the accumulation of many smaller, poorly-considered actions. And now, of course, as a Warrior of Light, she was bound to do what she could to rectify it. She'd had her fair part in creating it, as it were.

There was a aetheric ripple over her shoulder, and by now it was familiar enough to her that her face hardly even twitched as the deceptively tiny dragonet form of Midgardsormr appeared out of thin air, flapping his wings in a controlled descent to perch on her broad shoulder.

"Mmm." The deep voice of the Father of Dragons echoed through her mind. "And how dost thy efforts to contain Omega proceed, mortal?"

"As well as ever," she replied, wryly. "Well" was here, perhaps, substituting rather generously for "haphazardly," "inconsistently," or even "precariously." "I'm sure Cid and the Ironworks will figure something out eventually," she continued.

Midgardsormr hummed again.

"Dost thou believe thou canst face Omega?" the dragon asked. "Truly, when I could not?"

Sparkling considered. "Truly, I don't know. But I didn't know if I could face the Ultima Weapon, or Shinryu, either." She paused. "I always give my utmost. So far I have perhaps been merely lucky."

Midgardsormr was quiet for a long time after that, but he remained on her shoulder, slowly swishing his long, sinuous tail. It was hard sometimes to remember that this was the also the creature that remained entangled with the Agrius out in the middle of Silvertear Lake, forever frozen in a death embrace. It was even harder for her to envision this same dragon, millenia younger, fleeing across the very cosmos with his precious clutch of eggs in his care, looking to outrun the very entity now buried in the giant crater before them. Even throughout her travails in Ishgard, it had been hard to imagine the elder dragon as a _paternal_ creature. Nonetheless, he clearly was, for the lengths he had gone to for the sake of his children were nothing short of astonishing.

"It must be difficult for you," she said softly. The tiny dragon had no eyebrows to raise at her, but the flick of his tail against her shoulder gave her the distinct impression of wryness, or maybe it was the draconic telepathy kicking in. "You did much to ensure the future of your brood, and three of them are gone. Tiamat imprisoned. All at mortal hands."

She did not say _one at my own_ , though she thought it. It was likely not lost on Midgardsormr.

"Their children live on," the Father of Dragons said, simply. "Such is every parent's wish."

"Such was yours," Sparkling said. Midgardsormr simply hummed again in response, the low rumble of it echoing through her like a shuddering boat. She figured she would get no further response from him, and she was correct, though for once he did not choose to immediately disappear into the aether. Instead he stayed, seated on her shoulder, watching the yawning gape of the pit before them.


	30. Splinter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, this is the last entry for FFxivWrite 2020! I can't believe I made it the whole way! And with a bunch of stuff I actually quite like, even!
> 
> I'll confess, this short wasn't inspired by the prompt. It's something I've wanted to explore for a while and I was waiting for a prompt to feel right for it, but none really did, so I'm shoehorning a bit.

"Ah, there you are, Warrior of Light," he said, laughing a little. "Or Warrior of Darkness it is, I suppose, here on the First."

"Yes, G'raha Tia," came the response, "here I am. Or is it Crystal Exarch, here on the First?"

G'raha paused, somewhat taken aback by the coolness in her tone. It surprised him, and left a knot of apprehension in his stomach. They had won, hadn't they? Emet-selch was defeated, the Eighth Umbral Calamity averted, and even he had, against all odds, survived. What troubled her so? Unless...

"Is there bad news from the Source?" he asked.

She sighed and shook her head. "No worse than usual. The Empire remains a threat. That is only to be expected. For now I can leave matters to the Scions that remain there and focus on returning those trapped here to their home."

G'raha relaxed. "That is good to hear," he said, and moved to join her where she stood, leaning over one of the many railings in the Crystarium, watching the people milling about below. It was half a miracle he'd been able to find her, really. Or... would have been, had the Crystal Tower not granted him his particular powers of observation. He put that out of his mind. "May I ask what troubles you so, then?"

She eyed him sidelong, the green of her irises flashing in the late afternoon light.

"Something I've been wondering for some time, honestly," she replied. "Since Lyna gave me access to your private rooms in the Ocular and I learned of your plan via the Echo."

"Ah." He looked down at his hands--at the remaining normal one and the one of cracked blue crystal to match the tower from which he drew whatever power he could claim. "And what is that?"

"Why did you not simply _ask_ _?_ "

He blinked, surprised. "What do you mean?"

She closed her eyes, and he could see the tense line of her jaw where she clenched her teeth.

"You read Lord Edmont's account of my time in Ishgard, did you not?"

He nodded. "I did. Many times. It was how I knew..." His throat constricted suddenly, and he cleared it before continuing. "How I knew you would be willing to come to our aid."

"What a word. Willing." She turned to face him now, one elbow still braced on the railing. Even partially hunched over, she still towered above him like a pillar. "Tell me G'raha, how can someone be said to be _willing_ when they lack the information necessary to make an informed choice?"

"Ah," he said again. So this was the source of her ire. It was true that, with everything that had happened, and how she'd torn off back to the Source as soon as possible, they hadn't had much time to speak. Still, he had hoped...

"I did apologize," he added quietly. "And I did--and do--mean that apology."

She slowly shook her head. "I know you do. But I have my doubts that you _understand,_ G'raha. I still think that you actually believe you did the best you could."

Uneasy, G'raha shifted from foot to foot, that knot of apprehension growing ever tighter. "I--I did. I mean I do. I am sorry that it wasn't better but... I did. I did do the best that I could."

She shook her head again, more forcefully this time, frustration and anger clearly written on her face, and the sight of it put a pit of dread in his stomach. "Then I can only conclude that you're lying--again--about having read Edmont's memoirs. And if you did, then you sorely misunderstood everything meaningful about my work in Ishgard."

Her words hurt, and he opened his mouth to protest, but she continued before he could.

"They _asked,_ G'raha! They _asked me_." Suddenly she straightened and began to pace back and forth before him, expression growing ever cloudier. "Ishgard's war with Nidhogg was their own affair! A thousand years and that dragon never looked beyond the borders of Coerthas to sate his rage. Every last Ishgardian could have burned to death and the rest of Eorzea would never have been in a shred of danger, and they knew it. Nonetheless, they asked me for my help, because they loved their city despite its sins. Aymeric asked extraordinary things of me, and he knew that, too. But _he asked_. He asked and gave me the chance to refuse, should I have wished, but _I never did_."

She stopped and fixed her gaze on him, its intensity like twin suns, burning up his own. "Do you _understand_ , G'raha?"

His mouth worked uselessly, opening and closing, but no sounds came out. Because, he thought, he _did,_ or at least, understanding coalesced at the edges of his awareness, and the growing realization did nothing to dampen his dread. In fact, it made it worse.

"For _what other reason_ have I been given this thrice-damned _Blessing_ than to use it in pursuit of the impossible, G'raha? For what other reason than to fight where others cannot, to put myself in harm's way for their sake, to _protect Hydaelyn's world?_ Why else would She gift me so?" She slammed her fist down on the iron railing hard enough to rattle it, and he jumped in surprise. "I risked my life for Ishgard when I did not have to, did you _honestly_ believe I would have refused to do so on behalf of the First, when all the future of our very existence hung in the balance? Did you truly think so little of me?"

"Never," he managed to say, at last, desperation tinging his voice. "I... I have always thought more of you than any other..."

"Not enough to tell me the truth," she replied. "Not enough to be honest." Her mouth twitched. "What a manner you have of displaying your deep respect, G'raha."

He flinched at the words. What could he offer in return?

"I... I wished not to trouble you with it," he said. Quietly, pathetically, it rang so hollow in the face of her righteous rage. "To cause you more pain than necessary..."

"Pain is the lot of the Warrior," she spat back, disdainful. "Or is that something else you missed, when studying my litany of deeds? How could you have read all of that, all about Ishgard and Doma and Ala Mhigo, and think that I would balk in the face of pain?" Her glare was withering. "I thought Sharlayans were supposed to be _smart_."

A slap in the face, that one was, and it stung every bit as much as an actual blow would have.

"Y'shtola said my _soul_ was splintered, G'raha! And I _did not understand_ _why._ Did it never occur to you that maybe, _maybe_ , it would have been far easier to endure if I had known that it was impossible to do so _from the very start?_ That my failure was a guaranteed thing?"

She turned her head away, eyes closed, hands balled into fists with the effort of maintaining her composure. "And maybe, together, we could have devised a plan whose fulcrum _wasn't_ your sudden and unexpected death."

At that, at last G'raha dropped his eyes to stare at the ground beneath him. He had nothing left to say.

"Perhaps after a hundred years in that tower you forgot what it was like to have confidantes," she said, dully, this time. "That is the most generous I can be. I am glad you are alive. I am glad I did not turn. I wish you'd respected me enough to be honest. If there's one thing I wish for you to remember this time, it's that. Tell me the truth, and trust that I will make good choices." Her eyes flashed once more. "And I shall try to trust that _your_ choices will be good, in the future."

With that, she turned smartly, and was gone, leaving him alone with his thoughts, and his regrets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with that, FFxivWrite 2020 is done. Phew. It's a relief, honestly. I wont be doing any of the kinktober prompts or anything, I want to put my energy into my other half-finished projects and get more of that stuff out. Hey, if you've read and enjoyed any of this, thanks a bunch! Still kind of amazed anyone was interested! <3
> 
> I can be found on Twitter as @asparklingwol if you want to chat!


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